my mind during that long
month I have just spent upon an ambulance-bed, that month during
which you were my only thought. Ah! when I think of it, I cannot
find words to curse the recklessness with which I disposed of my
fortune."

As if she had heard a blasphemy, the young girl drew back a step.

"It is impossible," she exclaimed, "that you should regret having
paid what your father owed."

A bitter smile contracted M. de Tregars' lips.

"And suppose I were to tell you," he replied, "that my father in
reality owed nothing?"

"Oh!"

"Suppose I told you they took from him his entire fortune, over two
millions, as audaciously as a pick-pocket robs a man of his
handkerchief? Suppose I told you, that, in his loyal simplicity,
he was but a man of straw in the hands of skillful knaves? Have you
forgotten what you once heard the Count de Villegre say?"

Mlle. Gilberte had forgotten nothing.

"The Count de Villegre," she replied, "pretended that it was time
enough still to compel the men who had robbed your father to
disgorge."

"Exactly!" exclaimed Marius. "And now I am determined to make them
disgorge."

In the mean time night had quite come. Lights appeared in the
shop-windows; and along the line of the Boulevard the gas-lamps were
being lit. Alarmed by this sudden illumination, M. de Tregars drew
off Mlle. Gilberte to a more obscure spot, by the stairs that lead
to the Rue Amelot; and there, leaning against the iron railing, he
went on,

"Already, at the time of my father's death, I suspected the
abominable tricks of which he was the victim. I thought it unworthy
of me to verify my suspicions. I was alone in the world: my wants
were few. I was fully convinced that my researches would give me,
within a brief time, a much larger fortune than the one I gave up.
I found something noble and grand, and which flattered my vanity,
in thus abandoning every thing, without discussion, without
litigation, and consummating my ruin with a single dash of my pen.
Among my friends the Count de Villegre alone had the courage to tell
me that this was a guilty piece of folly; that the silence of the
dupes is the strength of the knaves; that my indifference, which
made the rascals rich, would make them laugh too. I replied that I
did not wish to see the name of Tregars dragged into court in a
scandalous law-suit, and that to preserve a dignified silence was
to honor my father's memory. Treble fool that I was! The onl