was beating at his heart,
and he confusedly bethought him, that it might be better not to repeat
the falsehood he had told M. Dufour. Before, however, he could decide
what to say, Dufour answered for him: 'He _says_ from Monsieur
Mangier, just by.'

'Strange!' said Mademoiselle Blaise. 'A clerk of Monsieur Derville's
has been taken into custody this very morning on suspicion of having
stolen this very note.'

Poor Bertrand! He felt as if seized with vertigo; and a stunned,
chaotic sense of mortal peril shot through his brain, as Marie's
solemn warning with respect to Derville rose up like a spectre before
him.

'I have heard of that circumstance,' said Dufour. And then, as
Bertrand did not, or could not speak, he added: 'You had better,
perhaps, mademoiselle, send for Monsieur Derville.'

This proposition elicited a wild, desperate cry from the bewildered
young man, who rushed distractedly out of the banking-house, and
hastened with frantic speed towards the Rue St Antoine--for the moment
unpursued.

Half an hour afterwards, Dufour and a bank-clerk arrived at
Mademoiselle de la Tour's. They found Bertrand and Marie together, and
both in a state of high nervous excitement. 'Monsieur Derville,' said
the clerk, 'is now at the bank; and Monsieur Blaise requests your
presence there, so that whatever misapprehension exists may be cleared
up without the intervention of the agents of the public force.'

'And pray, monsieur,' said Marie, in a much firmer tone than, from her
pale aspect, one would have expected, 'what does Monsieur Derville
himself say of this strange affair?'

'That the note in question, mademoiselle, must have been stolen from
his desk last evening. He was absent from home from half-past seven
till ten, and unfortunately left the key in the lock.'

'I was sure he would say so,' gasped Bertrand. 'He is a demon, and I
am lost.'

A bright, almost disdainful expression shone in Marie's fine eyes. 'Go
with these gentlemen, Hector,' she said; 'I will follow almost
immediately; and remember'---- What else she said was delivered in a
quick, low whisper; and the only words she permitted to be heard were:
'Pas un mot, si tu m'aime' (Not a word, if thou lovest me).

Bertrand found Messieurs Derville, Blaise, and Mangier in a private
room; and he remarked, with a nervous shudder, that two gendarmes were
stationed in the passage. Derville, though very pale, sustained
Bertrand's glance of rage and astonishment