ecovered his self-possession
and imposed upon his features their accustomed expression. Drawing
a chair by the side of Mlle. Gilberte,

"Permit me, my friend," he said, "to remind you that our moments are
numbered, and that there are many details which it is urgent that I
should know."

"What details?" she asked, raising her head.

"About your father."

She looked at him with an air of profound surprise.

"Do you not know more about it than I do?" she replied, "more than
my mother, more than any of us? Did you not, whilst following up
the people who robbed your father, strike mine unwittingly? And
'tis I, wretch that I am, who inspired you to that fatal resolution;
and I have not the heart to regret it."

M. de Tregars had blushed imperceptibly. "How did you know?" he
began.

"Was it not said that you were about to marry Mlle. de Thaller?"

He drew up suddenly.

"Never," he exclaimed, "has this marriage existed, except in the
brain of M. de Thaller, and, more still, of the Baroness de Thaller.
That ridiculous idea occurred to her because she likes my name, and
would be delighted to see her daughter Marquise de Tregars. She
has never breathed a word of it to me; but she has spoken of it
everywhere, with just enough secrecy to give rise to a good piece
of parlor gossip. She went so far as to confide to several persons
of my acquaintance the amount of the dowry, thinking thus to
encourage me. As far as I could, I warned you against this false
news through the Signor Gismondo."

"The Signor Gismondo relieved me of cruel anxieties," she replied;
"but I had suspected the truth from the first. Was I not the
confidante of your hopes? Did I not know your projects? I had
taken for granted that all this talk about a marriage was but a
means to advance yourself in M. de Thaller's intimacy without
awaking his suspicions."

M. de Tregars was not the man to deny a true fact.

"Perhaps, indeed, I have not been wholly foreign to M. Favoral's
disaster. At least I may have hastened it a few months, a few
days only, perhaps; for it was inevitable, fatal. Nevertheless,
had I suspected the real facts, I would have given up my designs
--Gilberte, I swear it--rather than risk injuring your father.
There is no undoing what is done; but the evil may, perhaps, be
somewhat lessened."

Mlle. Gilberte started.

"Great heavens!" she exclaimed, "do you, then, believe my father
innocent?"

Better than any one else, Ml