that the vicomte was shut up with his father, the
magistrate understood all, and respected his deep grief.

"Dead!" exclaimed the comte, hiding his face in his hands. "Dead!" he
repeated in a tone of agony. "It was just,--better death than infamy!
But it is horrible!"

"Sir," said the magistrate, sorrowfully, after a few minutes' silence,
"spare yourself a painful spectacle,--leave the house. And now I have
another duty to fulfil, even more painful than that which summoned me
hither."

"You are quite right, sir," said M. de Saint-Remy; "as to the sufferer
by this robbery, you will request him to call on M. Dupont, the banker."

"In the Rue Richelieu? He is very well known," replied the magistrate.

"What is the estimated value of the stolen diamonds?"

"About thirty thousand francs. The person who bought them, and by whom
the fraud was detected, gave that amount for them to your son."

"I can still pay it, sir. Let the jeweller go to my banker the day after
to-morrow, and I will have it all arranged."

The commissary bowed. The comte left the room.

After the departure of the latter, the magistrate, deeply affected by
this unlooked-for scene, went slowly towards the salon, the curtains of
which were closed. He moved them on one side with agitation.

"Nobody!" he exclaimed, amazed beyond measure, and looking around him,
unable to see the least trace of the tragic event which he believed had
just occurred.

Then, seeing a small door in the panel of the apartment, he went towards
it. It was fastened in the side of the secret staircase.

"It was a trick, and he has escaped by this door!" he exclaimed, with
vexation.

And in fact, the vicomte, having in his father's presence placed the
pistol on his heart, had very dexterously fired it under his arm, and
rapidly made off.

In spite of the most careful search throughout the house, they could not
discover Florestan.

During the conversation with his father and the commissary, he had
quickly gained the boudoir, then the conservatory, then the lone alley,
and so to the Champs Elysees.

* * * * *

The picture of this ignoble degradation in opulence is a sad thing.

We are aware of it. But for want of warnings, the richer classes have
also fatally their miseries, vices, crimes. Nothing is more frequent and
more afflicting than those insensate, barren prodigalities which we have
now described, and which always entail ruin, loss o