rner of the formal room discreetly lit by a shaded lamp.

"You have a clue, Monsieur?" she asked with adorable timidity.

Aristide tapped his forehead with his forefinger. "All is there,
Mademoiselle."

They exchanged a glance--the first they had exchanged--while Madame
Coquereau was frowning at her cards; and Aristide interpreted the glance
as the promise of supreme reward for great deeds accomplished.

The mayor returned early from the cafe, a dejected man. The loss of his
hundred and twenty pounds weighed heavily on his mind. He kissed his
mother sorrowfully on the cheek, his niece on the brow, held out a
drooping hand to Aristide, and, subsiding into a stiff imitation Louis
XVI chair, rested his elbows on its unconsoling arms and hid his face in
his hands.

"My poor uncle! You suffer so much?" breathed Stephanie, in divine
compassion.

"Little Saint!" murmured Aristide devoutly, as he declared four aces and
three queens.

The Mayor moved his head sympathetically. He was suffering from the
sharpest pain in his pocket he had felt for many a day. Madame
Coquereau's attention wandered from the cards.

"_Dis donc_, Fernand," she said sharply. "Why are you not wearing your
ring?"

The Mayor looked up.

"_Maman_," said he, "it is stolen."

"Your beautiful ring?" cried Aristide.

The Mayor's ring, which he usually wore, was a remarkable personal
adornment. It consisted in a couple of snakes in old gold clenching an
enormous topaz between their heads. Only a Mayor could have worn it with
decency.

"You did not tell me, Fernand," rasped the old lady. "You did not
mention it to me as being one of the stolen objects."

The Mayor rose wearily. "It was to avoid giving you pain, _maman_. I
know what a value you set upon the ring of my good Aunt Philomene."

"And now it is lost," said Madame Coquereau, throwing down her cards. "A
ring that belonged to a saint. Yes, Monsieur Pujol, a saint, though she
was my sister. A ring that had been blessed by His Holiness the
Pope----"

"But, _maman_," expostulated the Mayor, "that was an imagination of Aunt
Philomene. Just because she went to Rome and had an audience like anyone
else----"

"Silence, impious atheist that you are!" cried the old lady. "I tell you
it was blessed by His Holiness--and when I tell you a thing it is true.
That is the son of to-day. He will call his mother a liar as soon as
look at her. It was a ring beyond price. A ring such as there are few in