to enter your apartment, mademoiselle," he
uttered gently, "it is because, as I was going by the door, I
thought I recognized this gentleman's carriage."

And, with his finger over his shoulder, he was pointing to M.
Costeclar.

"Now," he went on, "I had reason to be somewhat astonished at this,
after the positive orders I had given him never to set his feet, not
only in this house, but in this part of the city. I wished to find
out exactly. I came up: I heard--"

All this was said in a tone of such crushing contempt, that a slap
on the face would have been less cruel. All the blood in M.
Costeclar's veins rushed to his face.

"You!" he interrupted insolently: "I do not know you."

Imperturbable, M. de Tregars was drawing off his gloves.

"Are you quite certain of that?" he replied. "Come, you certainly
know my old friend, M. de Villegre?"

An evident feeling of anxiety appeared on M. Costeclar's countenance.

"I do," he stammered.

"Did not M. Villegre call upon you before the war?"

"He did."

"Well, 'twas I who sent him to you; and the commands which he
delivered to you were mine."

"Yours?"

"Mine. I am Marius de Tregars."

A nervous shudder shook M. Costeclar's lean frame. Instinctively
his eye turned towards the door.

"You see," Marius went on with the same gentleness, "we are, you
and I, old acquaintances. For you quite remember me now, don't
you? I am the son of that poor Marquis de Tregars who came to
Paris, all the way from his old Brittany with his whole fortune,
--two millions."

"I remember," said the stock-broker: "I remember perfectly well."

"On the advice of certain clever people, the Marquis de Tregars
ventured into business. Poor old man! He was not very sharp. He
was firmly persuaded that he had already more than doubled his
capital, when his honorable partners demonstrated to him that he was
ruined, and, besides, compromised by certain signatures imprudently
given."

Mlle. Gilberte was listening, her mouth open, and wondering what
Marius was aiming at, and how he could remain so calm.

"That disaster," he went on, "was at the time the subject of an
enormous number of very witty jokes. The people of the bourse
could hardly admire enough these bold financiers who had so deftly
relieved that candid marquis of his money. That was well done for
him; what was he meddling with? As to myself, to stop the
prosecutions with which my father was threatened, I gave up a