h it would be too long to
explain to you, I regretted my apathy; and I thought that I should,
perhaps, find in that correspondence something to either dissipate
or justify certain suspicions which had occurred to me."

"So that, like a respectful son, you read it?" M. de Tregars bowed
ceremoniously.

"I believe," he said, "that to avenge a father of the imposture of
which he was the victim during his life, is to render homage to his
memory. Yes, madame, I read the whole of that correspondence, and
with an interest which you will readily understand. I had already,
and without result, examined the contents of several boxes, when in
the package marked 1852, a year which my father spent in Paris,
certain letters attracted my attention. They were written upon
coarse paper, in a very primitive handwriting and wretchedly spelt.
They were signed sometimes Phrasie, sometimes Marquise de Javelle.
Some gave the address, 'Rue des Bergers, No. 3, Paris-Grenelle.'

"Those letters left me no doubt upon what had taken place. My
father had met a young working-girl of rare beauty: he had taken a
fancy to her; and, as he was tormented by the fear of being loved
for his money alone, he had passed himself off for a poor clerk in
one of the departments."

"Quite a touching little love-romance," remarked the baroness.

But there was no impertinence that could affect Marius de Tregars'
coolness.

"A romance, perhaps," he said, "but in that case a money-romance,
not a love-romance. This Phrasie or Marquise de Javelle, announces
in one of her letters, that in February, 1853, she has given birth
to a daughter, whom she has confided to some relatives of hers in
the south, near Toulouse. It was doubtless that event which
induced my father to acknowledge who he was. He confesses that
he is not a poor clerk, but the Marquis de Tregars, having an
income of over a hundred thousand francs. At once the tone of
the correspondence changes. The Marquise de Javelle has a stupid
time where she lives; the neighbors reproach her with her fault;
work spoils her pretty hands. Result: less than two weeks after
the birth of her daughter, my father hires for his pretty mistress
a lovely apartment, which she occupies under the name of Mme. Devil;
she is allowed fifteen hundred francs a month, servants, horses,
carriage."

Mme. de Thaller was giving signs of the utmost impatience. Without
paying any attention to them, M. de Tregars proceeded,