e
mystery of your birth and the secret of the hatred that has pursued
you since the day when you first set your foot in M. de Thaller's
house."

Admirably self-possessed as Mlle. Lucienne usually was, the
quivering of her lips betrayed at this moment the intensity of her
emotion.

After more than a minute of profound meditation,

"The commissary of police," she said, "has never told me his hopes,
except in vague terms. He has told me enough, however, to make me
think that he has already had suspicions similar to yours."

"Of course! Would he otherwise have questioned me on the subject
of M. de Tregars?"

Mlle. Lucienne shook her head.

"And yet," she said, "even after your explanation, it is in vain
that I seek why and how I can so far disturb M. de Thaller's security
that he wishes to do away with me."

Maxence made a gesture of superb indifference. "I confess," he
said, "that I don't see it either. But what matters it? Without
being able to explain why, I feel that the Baron de Thaller is the
common enemy, yours, mine, my father's, and M. de Tregars'. And
something tells me, that, with M. de Tregars' help, we shall triumph.
You would share my confidence, Lucienne, if you knew him. There is
a man! and my sister has made no vulgar choice. If he has told my
mother that he has the means of serving her, it is because he
certainly has."

He stopped, and, after a moment of silence, "Perhaps," he went on,
"the commissary of police might readily understand what I only dimly
suspect; but, until further orders, we are forbidden to have recourse
to him. It is not my own secret that I have just told you; and, if
I have confided it to you, it is because I feel that it is a great
piece of good fortune for us; and there is no joy for me, that you
do not share."

Mlle. Lucienne wanted to ask many more particulars. But, looking at
his watch,

"Half-past ten!" he exclaimed, "and M. de Tregars waiting for me."

And he started off, repeating once more to the young girl,

"I will see you to-night: until then, good hope and good courage."

In the court, two ill-looking men were talking with the Fortins.
But it happened often to the Fortins to talk with ill-looking men:
so he took no notice of them, ran out to the Boulevard, and jumping
into a cab,

"Rue Lafitte 70," he cried to the driver, "I pay the trip,--three
francs."

When Marius de Tregars had finally determined to compel the bold
rascals who had swind