"You may leave us, Mme. d'Epernay," he said to Jacqueline. "No doubt your absence will spare your feelings, for we are going to be frank in our speech."

"I thank you for your consideration, M. Leroux," replied Jacqueline, and walked quietly out of the room. It occurred to me that Leroux could hardly be more frank than he had been, but I sat down and waited.

The ball was clicking round the wheel again, and very faintly, through the roar of the cataracts, I heard the sound of the fiddle below.

Leroux sat down heavily.

"I will put down my cards," he said. "I have you here in my power. I have four men with me. This dotard"--he glanced contemptuously at old Duchaine--"has no bearing on the situation. You can, of course, kill me; but that would not help you. You are in possession of some money belonging to Mme. d'Epernay, and also of certain information that I shall be glad to receive. There is no law in this valley except my will. Give me the information I want, keep your money, and go."

I waited.

"In the first place, are you, or are you not, in Carson's pay? I shall believe your answer because, if you are, I shall offer you a better price to join me, and therefore it will not pay you to lie. But you will not be able to deceive me by pretending to be."

"I am not," I answered.

"Then why did he send you here?"

"I left his employ three days before I met Mme. d'Epernay. If you were in New York you must have seen that I was not there."

"Good. Second, where is Louis d'Epernay?"

"I have never seen the man," I replied.

Leroux glanced incredulously at me.

"Then your meeting with _madame_ was purely an accident?" he inquired.

"Your only desire, then, was to get the money you knew she was carrying with her? But how did you know that she was carrying that money?"

I shrugged my shoulders. How was it possible for us to reach an understanding?

"I don't know why you are lying to me," he said. "It is not to your advantage. You must have known that she was in New York; Louis must have told Carson, and he must have told you. And Louis must have told you the secret of the entrance, unless----"

"Listen to me!" I cried furiously. "I will not be badgered with any more questions. I have told you the truth. I met Mme. d'Epernay by accident, and I escorted her toward the _chateau_, and followed her after you kidnapped her, to protect her from you."

He grunted and glanced at me with an inscrutable expression upon his hard features.

"You are in love with her?" he asked.

"Put it that way if you choose," I answered.

He scowled at me ferociously, and then he began studying my face. I returned stare for stare. Finally he banged his big fist down upon the table.

"Well, it doesn't matter," he said, "because, whatever your purpose, you cannot do any harm. And you understand that she is a married woman. So you will, no doubt, agree to take your money and depart?"

"I shall go if she tells me to go," I answered; but even while I spoke my heart sank, for I had little hope.

"That is easily settled," answered Leroux. "I will bring her back and you shall hear the decision from her own lips."

He left the room, and I sat there alone beside the dotard, listening to the click of the ball and the chink of the coins, and the roar of the twin cataracts above.

In truth, I had no further excuse for staying. I knew what Jacqueline's reply must be.

But there had been a sinister smoothness in Leroux's latest mood. I did not trust the man, for all his bluntness. I suspected something, and I did not intend to relax my guard.

A gentle touch upon the elbow made me leap round in my chair. Old Charles Duchaine had ceased to play and was watching me out of his mild eyes. His fingers stroked my coat-sleeve timidly, as though he were afraid of me.

"Don't go away!" he said with a shrewd leer. "Don't go away!"

"Eh?" I exclaimed, startled at this answer to my own self-questioning.

"Simon is a bad man," whispered the greybeard, putting his nodding head close down to mine. "He won't let you go away. He never lets anyone go when they have come here. He didn't know my little daughter was going, but I was too clever for him, because he wasn't here. They think I am a silly old man, but I know more than they think. Simon thinks he has got me in his power, but he hasn't."

"How is that?" I inquired, startled at the man's sincerity. I fancied that he must have been pretending to be half imbecile for reasons of his own.

"I have a system," leered the dotard. "I can win thousands and millions with it. I have been perfecting it for years. I have sent my little daughter to New York to play. Then I shall put Simon out of the house and we shall all be happy in Quebec together."

I turned from him in disgust, and, after ineffectually tapping my arm for a few moments, he went back to his wheel. But, though I was disappointed to discover that my surmise as to his playing a part was incorrect, his words set me thinking. An imbecile old person is often a fair reader of character. Was Simon plotting something?

He came back with Jacqueline before I could decide.

"If you bid him, _madame_, M. Hewlett is willing to take his departure," said Leroux to her. "Is it your wish that he remain or go?"

"Oh, I want you to go, _monsieur_," said Jacqueline, clasping her hands pleadingly. Her eyes were full of tears, which trickled down her cheeks, and she turned her head away. "There is no reason why you should remain, _monsieur_," she said.

"Are you saying this of your free will, Jacqueline?" I cried.

She nodded, and I saw Simon's evil face crease with suppressed mirth.

I rose up. "Adieu, then, _madame_," I said. "But first permit me to restore the money that I have been keeping for you." And I took out my pocketbook.

Simon stared at me incredulously.

"I do not understand you in the least, now, M. Hewlett," he exclaimed.

"You are to keep the money. I do not go back upon my bargains."

"It is not, however, your money," I retorted, though I knew that it soon would be. "I shall return it to Mme. d'Epernay, who entrusted me with it. Beyond that I care nothing as to its ultimate destination, though perhaps I can guess. Naturally I do not carry eight thousand dollars about with me----"

"Ten thousand!" shouted Simon.

"Mme. d'Epernay gave me eight thousand," I said. "I do not know anything about ten thousand. Probably Mr. Daly has the rest. But, as I was saying, I shall give you a check----"

Leroux burst into loud laughter and slapped me heartily upon the shoulder.

"Paul Hewlett," he said, with genuine admiration, "you are as good as a play. My friend, it would have paid you to have accepted my own offer.

However, you declined it and I shall not renew it. Well, let us take your check, and it shall be accepted in full settlement." He winked at me and thrust his tongue into his cheek.

I was too sick at heart to pay attention to his buffoonery. I sat down at the table and, taking up a pen which lay there, wrote a check for eight thousand dollars, making it out to Jacqueline d'Epernay. This I handed to her.

"_Adieu, madame_," I said.