aracter?"

Again M. Fille nodded.

"Has no good reputation hereabouts?"

The nod was repeated. "He has never been steady He goes here and there,
but always he comes back to get Jean Jacques' help. He and his daughter
are not close friends, and yet he likes to be near her. She can endure
him at least. He can command her interest. He is a stranger in a strange
land, and he drifts back to where she is always. But that is all."

"Then he is out of the question, and he would be always out of the
question except as a last resort; for sooner or later he would tell his
daughter, and challenge our George Masson too; and that is what you do
not wish, eh?"

"Precisely so," remarked M. Fille, dropping back again into gloom. "To
be quite honest, monsieur, even though it gives me a task which I abhor,
I do not think that M. Dolores could do what is needed without mistakes
which could not be mended. At least I can--" He stopped.

The Judge interposed at once, well pleased with the way things were
going for this "case." "Assuredly. You can as can no other, my Solon.
The secret of success in such things is a good heart, a right mind, a
clear intelligence and some astuteness, and you have it all. It is your
task and yours only."

The little man's self-respect seemed restored. He preened himself
somewhat and bowed to the Judge. "I take your commands, monsieur, to
obey them as heaven gives me power so to do. Shall it be tomorrow?"

The Judge reflected a moment, then said: "Tonight would be better,
but--"

"I can do it better to-morrow morning," interposed M. Fille, "for George
Masson has a meeting here at Vilray with the avocat Prideaux at ten
o'clock to sign a contract, and I can ask him to step into my office
on a little affair of business. He will not guess, and I shall
be armed"--the Judge frowned--"with the book of the law on such
misdemeanours, and the figures of the damages,"--the Judge smiled--"and
I think perhaps I can frighten him as he has never been frightened
before."

A courage and confidence had now taken possession of the Clerk in
strange contrast to his timidity and childlike manner of a few minutes
before. He was now as he appeared in court, clothed with an austere
authority which gave him a vicarious strength and dignity. The Judge had
done his work well, and he was of those folk in the world who are not
content to do even the smallest thing ill.

Arm in arm they passed into the garden which fronted the vin