ough that she had no more illusions left
with regard to her brother. The lawyer waited a little so that her
silence should have the weight of consent.

"Things being so, it is now a question of you and your child," he
said. "It rests with you to decide whether an income of two thousand
francs will be enough for your welfare, to say nothing of old
Sechard's property. Your father-in-law's income has amounted to seven
or eight thousand francs for a long time past, to say nothing of
capital lying out at interest. So, after all, you have a good prospect
before you. Why torment yourself?"

Petit-Claud left Eve Sechard to reflect upon this prospect. The whole
scheme had been drawn up with no little skill by the tall Cointet the
evening before.

"Give them the glimpse of a possibility of money in hand," the lynx
had said, when Petit-Claud brought the news of the arrest; "once let
them grow accustomed to that idea, and they are ours; we will drive a
bargain, and little by little we shall bring them down to our price
for the secret."

The argument of the second act of the commercial drama was in a manner
summed up in that speech.

Mme. Sechard, heartbroken and full of dread for her brother's fate,
dressed and came downstairs. An agony of terror seized her when she
thought that she must cross Angouleme alone on the way to the prison.
Petit-Claud gave little thought to his fair client's distress. When he
came back to offer his arm, it was from a tolerably Machiavellian
motive; but Eve gave him credit for delicate consideration, and he
allowed her to thank him for it. The little attention, at such a
moment, from so hard a man, modified Mme. Sechard's previous opinion
of Petit-Claud.

"I am taking you round by the longest way," he said, "and we shall
meet nobody."

"For the first time in my life, monsieur, I feel that I have no right
to hold up my head before other people; I had a sharp lesson given to
me last night----"

"It will be the first and the last."

"Oh! I certainly shall not stay in the town now----"

"Let me know if your husband consents to the proposals that are all
but definitely offered by the Cointets," said Petit-Claud at the gate
of the prison; "I will come at once with an order for David's release
from Cachan, and in all likelihood he will not go back again to
prison."

This suggestion, made on the very threshold of the jail, was a piece
of cunning strategy--a _combinazione_, as the Italians call an