ho think they have found a
greater coward than themselves, was pouring forth a torrent of
the grossest insults.

M. de Tregars was lifting his hand to administer a well-deserved
correction, when suddenly the scene in the grand parlor of the
Thaller mansion came back vividly to his mind. He saw again, as
in the glass, the ill-looking man listening, with an anxious look,
to Mme. de Thaller's propositions, and afterwards sitting down to
write.

"That's it!" he exclaimed, a multitude of circumstances occurring
to his mind, which had escaped him at the moment.

And, without further reflection, seizing his adversary by the
throat, he threw him over on the table, holding him down with his
knee.

"I am sure he must have the letter about him," he said to the
people who surrounded him.

And in fact he did take from the side-pocket of the villain a letter,
which he unfolded, and commenced reading aloud,

"I am waiting for you, my dear major, come quick, for the thing is
pressing,--a troublesome gentleman who is to be made to keep quiet.
It will be for you the matter of a sword-thrust, and for us the
occasion to divide a round amount."

"And, that's why he picked a quarrel with me," added M. de Tregars.

Two waiters had taken hold of the villain, who was struggling
furiously, and wanted to surrender him to the police.

"What's the use?" said Marius. "I have his letter: that's enough.
The police will find him when they want him."

And, getting back into his cab,

"Rue St. Gilles," he ordered, "and lively, if possible."

VIII

In the Rue St. Gilles the hours were dragging, slow and gloomy.
After Maxence had left to go and meet M. de Tregars, Mme. Favoral
and her daughter had remained alone with M. Chapelain, and had been
compelled to bear the brunt of his wrath, and to hear his
interminable complaints.

He was certainly an excellent man, that old lawyer, and too just to
hold Mlle. Gilberte or her mother responsible for Vincent Favoral's
acts. He spoke the truth when he assured them that he had for them
a sincere affection, and that they might rely upon his devotion.
But he was losing a hundred and sixty thousand francs; and a man
who loses such a large sum is naturally in bad humor, and not much
disposed to optimism.

The cruellest enemies of the poor women would not have tortured
them so mercilessly as this devoted friend.

He spared them not one sad detail of that meeting at the Mutual
Credit office,