d been administered to him
to induce him to launch into hazardous speculations,--he an old
Breton gentleman, full, even to absurdity, of the most obstinate
prejudices of the nobility? That's what I wished to ascertain.

"And now, madame, I--have ascertained."

She was a strong-minded woman, the Baroness de Thaller. She had
had so many adventures in her life, she had walked on the very edge
of so many precipices, concealed so many anxieties, that danger was,
as it were, her element, and that, at the decisive moment of an
almost desperate game, she could remain smiling like those old
gamblers whose face never betrays their terrible emotion at the
moment when they risk their last stake. Not a muscle of her face
moved; and it was with the most imperturbable calm that she said,

"Go on, I am listening: it must be quite interesting."

That was not the way to propitiate M. de Tregars.
He resumed, in a brief and harsh tone,

"When my father died, I was young. I did not know then what I have
learned since,--that to contribute to insure the impunity of knaves
is almost to make one's self their accomplice. And the victim who
says nothing and submits, does contribute to it. The honest man,
on the contrary, should speak, and point out to others the trap
into which he has fallen, that they may avoid it."

The baroness was listening with the air of a person who is compelled
by politeness to hear a tiresome story.

"That is a rather gloomy preamble," she said. M. de Tregars took
no notice of the interruption.

"At all times," he went on, "my father seemed careless of his
affairs: that affectation, he thought, was due to the name he bore.
But his negligence was only apparent. I might mention things of
him that would do honor to the most methodical tradesman. He had,
for instance, the habit of preserving all the letters of any
importance which he received. He left twelve or fifteen boxes full
of such. They were carefully classified; and many bore upon their
margin a few notes indicating what answer had been made to them."

Half suppressing a yawn,

"That is order," said the baroness, "if I know any thing about it."

"At the first moment, determined not to stir up the past, I
attached no importance to those letters; and they would certainly
have been burnt, but for an old friend of the family, the Count de
Villegre, who had them carried to his own house. But later, acting
under the influence of circumstances whic