ou, I have
been honest and pure, as I might always have been, perhaps, if I had
had, like you, a father to put a tool in my hands, a mother to teach me
my prayers. It was my sole regret that I was useless to you, and that I
deceived you concerning myself. To-day I have unmasked in saving you. It
is all right. Do not cry, and embrace me, for already I hear heavy boots
on the stairs. They are coming with the _posse_, and we must not seem to
know each other so well before those chaps."

He pressed Savinien quickly to his breast, then pushed him from him,
when the door was thrown wide open.

It was the landlord and the Auvergnat, who brought the police. Jean
Francois sprang forward to the landing-place, held out his hands for
the handcuffs, and said, laughing, "Forward, bad lot!"

To-day he is at Cayenne, condemned for life as an incorrigible.

[Illustration]

AT TABLE.

[Illustration: AT TABLE]

When the _maitre d'hotel_--oh, what a respectable paunch in an ample
kerseymere vest! What a worthy and red face, well framed by white
whiskers! (an English physique, I assure you)--when the imposing
_maitre d'hotel_ opened with two raps the door of the salon, and
announced in his musical bass voice, at the same time sonorous and
respectful, "The dinner of madame la comtesse is served," hats were hung
on the corners of brackets, while the more distinguished of the guests
offered their arms to the ladies, and all passed into the dining-room,
silent, almost meditative, like a procession.

The table glittered. What flowers! What lights! Each guest found his
place without difficulty. As soon as he had read his name on the glazed
card, a grand lackey in silk stockings pushed gently behind him a
luxurious chair embroidered with a count's coronet. Fourteen at the
table, not more: four young women in full toilets, and ten men belonging
to the aristocracy of blood or of merit, who had put on that evening all
their orders in honor of a foreign diplomat sitting at the right hand of
the mistress of the house. Clusters of jewelled decorations hung from
button-holes, plaques of diamonds glittered in the lapel of one or two
black coats, a heavy commander's cross sparkled on the starched front of
a general with a red cravat. As to the ladies, they bore all the
splendors of their jewel-boxes.

[Illustration]

An elegant and exquisite reunion! What an atmosphere of good-living in
the high hall--splendidly decorated and ornamente