it, gentlemen, the
wretch who has so basely deceived us had my entire confidence. You
will understand my apparent blindness when you know with what
infernal skill he managed."

Loud imprecations burst on all sides against Vincent Favoral. But
the president of the Mutual Credit proceeded,

"For the present, all I have to ask of you is to keep cool, and
continue to give me your confidence."

"Yes, yes!"

"The panic of night before last was but a stock-gambling manoeuvre,
organized by rival establishments, who were in hopes of taking our
clients away from us. They will be disappointed, gentlemen. We
will triumphantly demonstrate our soundness; and we shall come out
of this trial more powerful than ever."

It was all over. M. de Thaller understood his business. They
offered him a vote of thanks. A smile was beaming upon the same
faces that were a moment before contracted with rage.

One stockholder alone did not seem to share the general enthusiasm:
he was no other than our old friend, M. Chapelain, the ex-lawyer.

"That fellow, Thaller, is just capable of getting himself out of
the scrape," he grumbled. "I must tell Maxence."

II

We have every species of courage in France, and to a superior
degree, except that of braving public opinion. Few men would have
dared, like Marius de Tregars, to offer their name to the daughter
of a wretch charged with embezzlement and forgery, and that at the
very moment when the scandal of the crime was at its height. But,
when Marius judged a thing good and just, he did it without
troubling himself in the least about what others would think. And
so his mere presence in the Rue. St. Gilles had brought back hope
to its inmates. Of his designs he had said but a word,--"I have
the means of helping you: I mean, by marrying Gilberte, to acquire
the right of doing so."

But that word had been enough. Mme. Favoral and Maxence had
understood that the man who spoke thus was one of those cool and
resolute men whom nothing disconcerts or discourages, and who knows
how to make the best of the most perilous situations.

And, when he had retired with the Count de Villegre,

"I don't know what he will do," said Mlle. Gilberte to her mother
and her brother: "but he will certainly do something; and, if it
is humanly possible to succeed, he will succeed."

And how proudly she spoke thus! The assistance of Marius was the
justification of her conduct. She trembled with joy at