e reached Saint Cloud he entered a tavern and ordered some bread
and cheese and wine. But if he drank little, he ate less, his parched
throat refusing to swallow bread.

He took up his march in the clayey streets on the slope of Mont Valerian,
but he was insensible to the unpleasantness of slipping on the soft soil,
and walked hither and thither, his only care being not to get too far
away from the Seine, so that he might enter Paris before night.

He was delighted since he had made up his mind to make out and sign a
receipt for the money. But on giving it further consideration, he
perceived that it was not so ingenious as he had at first supposed. Do
not the dealers of stamped paper often number their paper? With this
number it would be easy to find the dealer and him who had bought it. And
then, was it not likely that a scrupulous business man like Caffie would
keep a record of the loans he made, and would not the absence of this one
and the note be sufficient to awaken suspicion and to direct it to him?

Decidedly, he only escaped one danger to fall into another.

For a moment he was discouraged, but it did not go so far as weakness.
His error had been in imagining that the execution of the idea that had
come to him while picking up the knife was as plain as it was easy. But
complicated and perilous as it was, it was not impossible.

The question which finally stood before him was, to know whether he
possessed the force needed to cope with these dangers, and on this ground
hesitation was not possible; to wish to foresee everything was folly;
that which he would not have expected, would come to pass.

He returned toward Paris, and by the Pont de Suresnes reentered the Bois
de Boulogne. As it was not yet three o'clock, he had plenty of time to
reach the Rue Sainte-Anne before night; but, on the way, a heavy shower
forced him to take shelter, and he watched the falling rain, asking
himself if this accident, which he had not foreseen, would not upset his
plan. A man who had received the force of this shower could not appear in
the street before Caffie's door without attracting the attention of the
passers-by, and it was important for him that he should not attract the
attention of any one.

At length the rain ceased, and at twenty minutes of five he reached his
home. There remained fifteen or twenty minutes of daylight, which was
more than he needed.

He stuck the point of the knife in a cork, and, after having pl