'I see you
care more for your two millions than for me. A woman is always
glad to know at what she is valued!' and I turned my back on him.

"In a few hours the old rascal will know that I was not in jest.

"Who will part your hair as nicely as I do? Pooh!--I will think no
more of anything in life; I have but five minutes, I give them to
God. Do not be jealous of Him, dear heart; I shall speak to Him of
you, beseeching Him for your happiness as the price of my death,
and my punishment in the next world. I am vexed enough at having
to go to hell. I should have liked to see the angels, to know if
they are like you.

"Good-bye, my darling, good-bye! I give you all the blessing of my
woes. Even in the grave I am your Esther.

"It is striking eleven. I have said my last prayers. I am going to
bed to die. Once more, farewell! I wish that the warmth of my hand
could leave my soul there where I press a last kiss--and once more
I must call you my dearest love, though you are the cause of the
death of your Esther."

A vague feeling of jealousy tightened on the magistrate's heart as
he read this letter, the only letter from a suicide he had ever found
written with such lightness, though it was a feverish lightness, and the
last effort of a blind affection.

"What is there in the man that he should be loved so well?" thought he,
saying what every man says who has not the gift of attracting women.

"If you can prove not merely that you are not Jacques Collin and an
escaped convict, but that you are in fact Don Carlos Herrera, canon
of Toledo, and secret envoy of this Majesty Ferdinand VII.," said he,
addressing the prisoner "you will be released; for the impartiality
demanded by my office requires me to tell you that I have this moment
received a letter, written by Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck, in which she
declares her intention of killing herself, and expresses suspicions as
to her servants, which would seem to point to them as the thieves who
have made off with the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs."

As he spoke Monsieur Camusot was comparing the writing of the letter
with that of the will; and it seemed to him self-evident that the same
person had written both.

"Monsieur, you were in too great a hurry to believe in a murder; do not
be too hasty in believing in a theft."

"Heh!" said Camusot, scrutinizing the prisoner with a piercing eye.

"Do not suppose that I am compromisin