es through which the country was passing. Thus the
ministry might last, and live in comparative quietude, for a few weeks
longer.

Guillaume, however, was struck by one point only: the culprit was not
known; Salvat, it appeared certain, was neither arrested nor even
suspected. It seemed, indeed, as if the police were starting on a false
scent--that of a well-dressed gentleman wearing gloves, whom a neighbour
swore he had seen entering the mansion at the moment of the explosion.
Thus Guillaume became a little calmer. But his brother read to him from
another paper some particulars concerning the engine of destruction that
had been employed. It was a preserved-meat can, and the fragments of it
showed that it had been comparatively small. And Guillaume relapsed into
anxiety on learning that people were much astonished at the violent
ravages of such a sorry appliance, and that the presence of some new
explosive of incalculable power was already suspected.

At eight o'clock Bertheroy put in an appearance. Although he was
sixty-eight, he showed as much briskness and sprightliness as any young
sawbones calling in a friendly way to perform a little operation. He had
brought an instrument case, some linen bands and some lint. However, he
became angry on finding the injured man nervous, flushed and hot with
fever.

"Ah! I see that you haven't been reasonable, my dear child," said he.
"You must have talked too much, and have bestirred and excited yourself."
Then, having carefully probed the wound, he added, while dressing it:
"The bone is injured, you know, and I won't answer for anything unless
you behave better. Any complications would make amputation necessary."

Pierre shuddered, but Guillaume shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that
he might just as well be amputated since all was crumbling around him.
Bertheroy, who had sat down, lingering there for another moment,
scrutinised both brothers with his keen eyes. He now knew of the
explosion, and must have thought it over. "My dear child," he resumed in
his brusque way, "I certainly don't think that you committed that
abominable act of folly in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy. But I fancy that you
were in the neighbourhood--no, no, don't answer me, don't defend
yourself. I know nothing and desire to know nothing, not even the formula
of that devilish powder of which your shirt cuff bore traces, and which
has wrought such terrible havoc."

And then as the brothers remained surprise