Mlle. Gilberte Favoral waiting. Let
her come at once."

And, rushing into the parlor,

"Fly!" he said to Mme. Thaller.

But she was as petrified by this apparition.

"M. de Tregars!"

"Yes, yes, me. But hurry and go!"

And he pushed her into the closet.

It was but time. Vincent Favoral reappeared upon the threshold of
the bedroom. But, if it was a weapon he had gone for, it was not
for the one which Marius and Mme. Cadelle supposed. It was a bundle
of papers which he held in his hand. Seeing M. de Tregars there,
instead of Mme. de Thaller, an exclamation of terror and surprise
rose to his lips. He understood vaguely what must have taken place;
that the man who stood there must have been concealed in the glass
closet, and that he had assisted the baroness to escape.

"Ah, the miserable wretch!" he stammered with a tongue made thick
by passion, "the infamous wretch! She has betrayed me; she has
surrendered me. I am lost!"

Mastering the most terrible emotion he had ever felt,

"No, no! you shall not be surrendered," uttered M. de Tregars.

Collecting all the energy that the devouring passion which had
blasted his existence had left him, the former cashier of the
Mutual Credit took one or two steps forward.

"Who are you, then?" he asked.

"Do you not know me? I am the son of that unfortunate Marquis de
Tregars of whom you spoke a moment since. I am Lucienne's brother."

Like a man who has received a stunning blow, Vincent Favoral sank
heavily upon a chair.

"He knows all," he groaned.

"Yes, all!"

"You must hate me mortally."

"I pity you."

The old cashier had reached that point when all the faculties, after
being strained to their utmost limits, suddenly break down, when
the strongest man gives up, and weeps like a child.

"Ah, I am the most wretched of villains!" he exclaimed.

He had hid his face in his hands; and in one second,--as it happens,
they say, to the dying on the threshold of eternity,--he reviewed
his entire existence.

"And yet," he said, "I had not the soul of a villain. I wanted to
get rich; but honestly, by labor, and by rigid economy. And I
should have succeeded. I had a hundred and fifty thousand francs
of my own when I met the Baron de Thaller. Alas! why did I meet
him? 'Twas he who first gave me to understand that it was stupid
to work and save, when, at the bourse, with moderate luck, one might
become a millionaire in six months."

He stopped, sh