upon some
other woman that money would be spent. I decided that, at the first
moment, I would hasten to this house; I would explain the matter to
M. Vantine, I would persuade him to restore to me the letters, with
which I would fly to madame. I knew, also, that I could rely upon her
gratitude," added the girl. "After all, one must provide for
oneself."

She paused and glanced around the room, smiling at the interest in
our faces.

"You have at least one virtue--that of frankness," said the veiled
lady. "Continue."

"It was not until evening that I found an opportunity to leave
madame," Julie went on. "I hastened here; I rang the bell; but I
confess I should have failed, I should not have secured an entrance,
if it had not been that it was my husband who opened the door to me.
Even after I was inside the door, he refused to permit me to see his
master; but as we were debating together, M. Vantine himself came
into the hall, and I ran to him and begged that he hear me. It was
then that he invited me to enter this room."

She paused again, and a little shiver of expectancy ran through me.
At last we were to learn how Philip Vantine had met his death!

"I sat down," continued Julie. "I told him the story from the very
beginning. He listened with much interest; but when I proposed that
he should restore to me the letters, he hesitated. He walked up and
down the room, trying to decide; then he took me through that door
into the room beyond. The cabinet was standing in the centre of the
floor, and all the lights were blazing.

"'Is that the cabinet?' he asked me, and when I said that most
assuredly it was, he seemed surprised.

"'It is an easy thing to prove,' I said, and I went to the cabinet
and pressed on the three springs, as I had seen madame do. The little
handle at the side fell out, but suddenly he stopped me.

"'Yes, it is the cabinet,' he said. 'I see that. And no doubt the
drawer contains the letters, as you say. But those letters do not
belong to you. They belong to your mistress. I cannot permit that you
take them away, for, after all, I do not know you. You may intend to
make some bad use of them.'

"I protested that such a suspicion was most unjust, that my character
was of the best, that I was devoted to my mistress and desired to
protect her. He listened, but he was not convinced. In the end, he
brought me back into this room. I could have cried with rage!

"'Return to your mistress,' he said, '