ge, in a low voice.

"You are wrong. Fortune is capricious, and in six months we may be
richer than we ever have been. But as you have decided, let me give you
a piece of advice which will be worth the money you have lost. Confess
all to your wife; she can get you out of this difficulty."

The financier held out a hand to Serge which he did not take.

"Ah! pride!" murmured Herzog. "After all it is your right--It is you who
pay!"

Without answering a word the Prince went out.

At that same hour, Madame Desvarennes, tired by long waiting, was pacing
up and down her little drawing-room. A door opened and Marechal, the
long-looked for messenger, appeared. He had been to Cayrol's, but could
not see him. The banker, who had shut himself up in his private office
where he had worked all night, had given orders that no one should
interrupt him. And as Madame Desvarennes seemed to have a question on
her lips which she dared not utter, Marechal added that nothing unusual
seemed to have happened at the house.

But as the mistress was thanking her secretary, the great gate swung on
its hinges, and a carriage rolled into the courtyard. Marechal flew to
the window, and uttered one word,

"Cayrol!"

Madame Desvarennes motioned to him to leave her, and the banker appeared
on the threshold.

At a glance the mistress saw the ravages which the terrible night he
had passed through had caused. Yesterday, the banker was rosy, firm, and
upright as an oak, now he was bent, and withered like an old man. His
hair had become gray about the temples, as if scorched by his burning
thoughts. He was only the shadow of himself.

Madame Desvarennes advanced toward him, and in one word asked a world of
questions.

"Well?" she said.

Cayrol, gloomy and fierce, raised his eyes to the mistress, and
answered:

"Nothing!"

"Did he not come?"

"Yes, he came. But I had not the necessary energy to kill him. I thought
it was an easier matter to become a murderer. And you thought so too,
eh?"

"Cayrol!" cried Madame Desvarennes, shuddering, and troubled to find
that she had been so easily understood by him whom she had armed on her
behalf.

"The opportunity was a rare one, though," continued Cayrol, getting
excited. "Fancy; I found them together under my own roof. The law
allowed me, if not the actual right to kill them, at least an excuse if
I did so. Well, at the decisive moment, when I ought to have struck the
blow, my heart failed me. H