And yet, you are ready to abandon the benefits which would assuredly be
yours should you decide to make the revelation?"

"I am, first of all, your servant, sir!"

"Throw your cards on the table, Cyprien! What do you want me to do in
exchange for this great service?"

"I impose no condition. I have faith in the generosity of my master."

"And you are right!" the Marquis replied. "If I succeed, I will make you
rich, and place you so high on the social ladder that the greatest names
in France will bow before you!"

"Thank you, honored sir. When the hour arrives, I will remind you of
your words. But now we must think of Pierre Labarre. Time presses!"

"I am ready. Where are we to find him?"

"Two leagues from here, near the little town of Vagney."

"It is now three o'clock," said the Marquis. "We can surely return here
to-night. You had best order the horses at once."

When the Marquis was alone, he bowed his face in his hands.

"If I could believe him!" he murmured. "But I am afraid!"

A few brief words of explanation are here necessary. The Fongereues
family re-entered France with the allied armies, and immediately
obtained the favor of the king. The old Marquis was elevated to the
peerage, and Magdalena felt that her ambitious projects were on the eve
of fulfilment. The Vicomte de Talizac easily obtained proof of the death
of Simon Fougere; his wife and children had disappeared, and probably
perished. The Vicomte, therefore, did not hesitate to claim as sole heir
the estate on the death of the Marquis in 1817. But this estate, though
considerable, was far less important than he and Magdalena had hoped.
The Vicomte was deeply in debt, and his creditors became impatient. If
he and the Vicomtesse had not been madly extravagant, all the more so
from the restrictions they had so long endured, their revenues would
have been more than sufficient. But these two persons, who had not
recoiled from a terrible crime to ensure their undisputed possession of
the Fongereues fortune, were now carried away by a wild thirst for
excitement and gayety. The hotel they occupied became the scene of
perpetual fetes and the rendezvous of the aristocracy.

Magdalena's son, who now bore the title of the Vicomte de Talizac,
brought up amid this mad prodigality, developed early the faults of his
nature, which were increased by the foolish indulgence of his mother.

His father read his character at a glance, and cautioned Magdalena, who