st criminal act is to come
of it."

"You are a great baby, monsieur," replied the woman; "you wish to remain
blameless in your own eyes, while you want your enemy to be overthrown."

Victorin shook his head in denial.

"Yes," she went on, "you want this Madame Marneffe to drop the prey she
has between her teeth. But how do you expect to make a tiger drop his
piece of beef? Can you do it by patting his back and saying, 'Poor
Puss'? You are illogical. You want a battle fought, but you object to
blows.--Well, I grant you the innocence you are so careful over. I have
always found that there was material for hypocrisy in honesty! One day,
three months hence, a poor priest will come to beg of you forty thousand
francs for a pious work--a convent to be rebuilt in the Levant--in
the desert.--If you are satisfied with your lot, give the good man the
money. You will pay more than that into the treasury. It will be a mere
trifle in comparison with what you will get, I can tell you."

She rose, standing on the broad feet that seemed to overflow her satin
shoes; she smiled, bowed, and vanished.

"The Devil has a sister," said Victorin, rising.

He saw the hideous stranger to the door, a creature called up from the
dens of the police, as on the stage a monster comes up from the third
cellar at the touch of a fairy's wand in a ballet-extravaganza.

After finishing what he had to do at the Courts, Victorin went to call
on Monsieur Chapuzot, the head of one of the most important branches of
the Central Police, to make some inquiries about the stranger. Finding
Monsieur Chapuzot alone in his office, Victorin thanked him for his
help.

"You sent me an old woman who might stand for the incarnation of the
criminal side of Paris."

Monsieur Chapuzot laid his spectacles on his papers and looked at the
lawyer with astonishment.

"I should not have taken the liberty of sending anybody to see you
without giving you notice beforehand, or a line of introduction," said
he.

"Then it was Monsieur le Prefet--?"

"I think not," said Chapuzot. "The last time that the Prince de
Wissembourg dined with the Minister of the Interior, he spoke to
the Prefet of the position in which you find yourself--a deplorable
position--and asked him if you could be helped in any friendly way. The
Prefet, who was interested by the regrets his Excellency expressed as to
this family affair, did me the honor to consult me about it.

"Ever since the present P