m
sending them money?"

"They would refuse it."

"You will always be a fool, my dear!"

To Vincent Favoral's first stupor and miserable weakness now
succeeded a terrible passion. All the blood had left his face:
his eyes was flashing.

"Then," he resumed, "all is really over?"

"Of course."

"Then I have been duped like the rest,--like that poor Marquis de
Tregars, whom you had made mad also. But he, at least saved his
honor; whereas I--And I have no excuse; for I should have known.
I knew that you were but the bait which the Baron de Thaller held
out to his victims."

He waited for an answer; but she maintained a contemptuous silence.

"Then you think," he said with a threatening laugh, "that it will
all end that way?"

"What can you do?"

"There is such a thing as justice, I imagine, and judges too. I can
give myself up, and reveal every thing."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"That would be throwing yourself into the wolf's mouth for nothing,"
she said. "You know better than any one else that my precautions
are well enough taken to defy any thing you can do or say. I have
nothing to fear."

"Are you quite sure of that?"

"Trust to me," she said with a smile of perfect security.

The former cashier of the Mutual Credit made a terrible gesture; but,
checking himself at once, he seized one of the baroness's hands.
She withdrew it quickly, however, and, in an accent of insurmountable
disgust,

"Enough, enough!" she said.

In the adjoining closet Marius de Tregars could feel Mme. Zelie
Cadelle shuddering by his side.

"What a wretch that woman is!" she murmured; "and he--what a base
coward!"

The former cashier remained prostrated, striking the floor with his
head.

"And you would forsake me," he groaned, "when we are united by a
past such as ours! How could you replace me? Where would you find
a slave so devoted to your every wish?"

The baroness was getting impatient.

"Stop!" she interrupted,--"stop these demonstrations as useless
as ridiculous."

This time he did start up, as if lashed with a whip and, double
locking the door which communicated with the ante-chamber, he put
the key in his pocket; and, with a step as stiff and mechanical as
that of an automaton, he disappeared in the sleeping-room.

"He is going for a weapon," whispered Mme. Cadelle.

It was also what Marius thought.

"Run down quick," he said to Mme. Zelie. "In a cab standing
opposite No. 25, you will find