spered to _you_, sir, and which it was your business
to have suppressed and extinguished. By ----, Blassemare, you deserve my
curses and my vengeance."

As he concluded, he struck the glass upon the table with a force that
shivered it to pieces.

"Monsieur le Prun," said Blassemare, coolly, "I deprecate no man's
vengeance, and fear no man's sword; but whatever be the ground of your
present convictions, it is utterly fallacious. The person in question
has never stirred abroad--you mean the _sister_ of course--since your
marriage, except under close and trustworthy attendance; and the
other--_that_ you know is out of the question."

"There has been mismanagement somewhere, or else some new device of
infernal malice; I say the thing has been misconducted, with the same
cursed blundering that has always attended that affair; and I would
rather my wife were in her coffin than have seen what I have seen
to-night."

"What! in her coffin!" echoed Blassemare, with a sort of fiendish
satire.

"Ay, sir, in her coffin!" said Le Prun, with a black defiance which made
Blassemare shrug his shoulders and become silent.

The chill and the smell of death seemed to him to have come with these
words into the room. But he would not on any account have betrayed his
sensations; on the contrary, he pointed gayly to the cards, and looked a
smiling interrogatory towards the fermier. But that excellent gentleman
was in no mood for picquet. He declined the challenge gloomily and
peremptorily.

"_Ma foi!_ you suffer trifles to plague you strangely," said Blassemare,
as they parted for the night. "What on earth does it signify after all?
Thwart a woman, and she will strive to vex you--there's nothing new in
that; why should not Madame Le Prun share the pretty weaknesses of her
sex? On the other hand, indulge her, and she will flatter as much as she
teased before. You are too sensitive, too fond, and, therefore,
exaggerate trifles. Good night."

Monsieur Le Prun withdrew, and Blassemare muttered--

"Remorseless old criminal! I shall keep my eye close upon you, and if I
see any sign of the sort----"

He set his teeth together, smiled resolutely and threateningly, and
nodded his head twice or thrice in the direction of the door through
which the fermier-general had just disappeared.

The violent explosion we have just described was not followed by any
very decisive results. The fermier-general and his wife had not been
upon very pleasant