Marneffe knowingly. "These gentlemen must draw up
their report as eyewitnesses to the fact; without that, the chief
evidence in my case, where should I be? The higher official ranks are
chokeful of rascalities. You have done me out of my wife, and you have
not promoted me, Monsieur le Baron; I give you only two days to get
out of the scrape. Here are some letters--"

"Some letters!" interrupted Hulot.

"Yes; letters which prove that you are the father of the child my wife
expects to give birth to.--You understand? And you ought to settle on
my son a sum equal to what he will lose through this bastard. But I
will be reasonable; this does not distress me, I have no mania for
paternity myself. A hundred louis a year will satisfy me. By to-morrow
I must be Monsieur Coquet's successor and see my name on the list for
promotion in the Legion of Honor at the July fetes, or else--the
documentary evidence and my charge against you will be laid before the
Bench. I am not so hard to deal with after all, you see."

"Bless me, and such a pretty woman!" said the Justice of the Peace to
the police constable. "What a loss to the world if she should go mad!"

"She is not mad," said the constable sententiously. The police is
always the incarnation of scepticism.--"Monsieur le Baron Hulot has
been caught by a trick," he added, loud enough for Valerie to hear
him.

Valerie shot a flash from her eye which would have killed him on the
spot if looks could effect the vengeance they express. The
police-officer smiled; he had laid a snare, and the woman had fallen
into it. Marneffe desired his wife to go into the other room and clothe
herself decently, for he and the Baron had come to an agreement on all
points, and Hulot fetched his dressing-gown and came out again.

"Gentlemen," said he to the two officials, "I need not impress on you
to be secret."

The functionaries bowed.

The police-officer rapped twice on the door; his clerk came in, sat
down at the "bonheur-du-jour," and wrote what the constable dictated
to him in an undertone. Valerie still wept vehemently. When she was
dressed, Hulot went into the other room and put on his clothes.
Meanwhile the report was written.

Marneffe then wanted to take his wife home; but Hulot, believing that
he saw her for the last time, begged the favor of being allowed to
speak with her.

"Monsieur, your wife has cost me dear enough for me to be allowed to
say good-bye to her--in the presence of