reasure?" The reply had been of such a sort that the Judge was
startled:

"Tut, tut," he had exclaimed, "an actor--an actor once a lawyer! That's
serious. She's at an age--and with a temperament like hers she'll
believe anything, if once her affections are roused. She has a flair for
the romantic, for the thing that's out of reach--the bird on the highest
branch, the bird in the sky beyond ours, the song that was lost before
time was, the light that never was on sea or land. Why, damn it, damn it
all, my Solon, here's the beginning of a case in Court unless we can lay
the fellow by the heels! How long is he here for?"

When M. Fille had told him that he would stay for another month for
certain, and no doubt much longer, if there seemed a prospect of winning
the heiress of the Manor Cartier, the Judge gave a groan.

"We must get him away, somehow," he said. "Where does he stay?"

"At the house of Louis Charron," was the reply. "Louis Charron--isn't he
the fellow that sells whisky without a license?"

"It is so, monsieur."

The Judge moved his head from side to side like a bear in a cage. "It
is that, is it, my Fille? By the thumb of the devil, isn't it time then
that Louis Charron was arrested for breaking the law? Also how do we
know but that the interloping fellow Fynes is an agent for a whisky firm
perhaps? Couldn't he, then, on suspicion, be arrested with--"

The Clerk of the Court shook his head mournfully. His Judge was surely
becoming childish in his old age. He looked again closely at the great
man, and saw a glimmer of moisture in the grey eyes. It was clear that
Judge Carcasson felt deeply the dangers of the crisis, and that the
futile outburst had merely been the agitated protest of the helpless.

"The man is what he says he is--an actor; and it would be folly to
arrest him. If our Zoe is really fond of him, it would only make a
martyr of him."

As he made this reply M. Fille looked furtively at the other--out of
the corner of his eye, as it were. The reply of the Judge was
impatient, almost peevish and rough. "Did you think I was in earnest,
my punchinello? Surely I don't look so young as all that. I am over
sixty-five, and am therefore mentally developed!"

M. Fille was exactly sixty-five years of age, and the blow was a shrewd
one. He drew himself up with rigid dignity.

"You must feel sorry sometimes for those who suffered when your mind was
undeveloped, monsieur," he answered. "You were a judg