letter, has committed suicide. There
is a _proces-verbal_ at which he is wanted. I summon him to accompany me
in the name of the law--and there he is."

[Illustration: "AND YOU!" SHOUTED BOCARDON, FALLING ON ARISTIDE; "I MUST
EMBRACE YOU ALSO"]

"Then that letter was not for my wife?" said Bocardon, who was not
quick-witted.

"But, no, imbecile!" cried Aristide.

Bocardon hugged his wife in his vast embrace. The tears ran down his
cheeks.

"Ah, my little Zette, my little Zette, will you ever pardon me?"

"_Oui, je te pardonne, gros jaloux_," said Zette.

"And you!" shouted Bocardon, falling on Aristide; "I must embrace you
also." He kissed him on both cheeks, in his expansive way, and thrust
him towards Zette.

"You can also kiss my wife. It is I, Bocardon, who command it."

The fire of a not ignoble pride raced through Aristide's veins. He was a
hero. He knew it. It was a moment worth living.

The embraces and other expressions of joy and gratitude being
temporarily suspended, attention was turned to the unheroic couple who
up to then had said not one word to each other. The explanation of their
conduct, too, was simple, apparently. They were in love. She had no
dowry. He could not marry her, as his parents would not give their
consent. She, for her part, was frightened to death by the discovery of
the letter, lest Bocardon should turn her out of the house.

"What dowry will satisfy your parents?"

"Nothing less than twelve thousand francs."

"I give it," said Bocardon, reckless in his newly-found happiness.
"Marry her."

The clock in the bureau struck four. Aristide pulled out his watch.

"_Saperlipopette!_" he cried, and disappeared like a flash into the
street.

"But what's the matter with him?" shouted Bocardon, in amazement.

Zette went to the door. "He's running as if he had the devil at his
heels."

"Was he always like that?" asked her husband.

"How always?"

"_Parbleu!_ When you used to see him at your Aunt Leonie's."

Zette flushed red. To repudiate the saviour of her entire family were an
act of treachery too black for her ingenuous heart.

"Ah, yes," she replied, calmly, coming back into the hall. "We used to
call him Cousin Quicksilver."

In the big avenue Aristide hailed a passing cab.

"To the Hotel du Luxembourg--at a gallop!"

In the joyous excitement of the past few hours this child of impulse
and sunshine, this dragon-fly of a man, had entirely forgo