"Indeed!"

"Well, if you insist upon it, I am wrong, I suppose."

"Not only you are wrong," uttered Marius still perfectly cool, "but you have committed a great imprudence. By failing to keep your engagements, you have relieved me of mine. The pact is broken. According to the agreement, I have the right, as I leave here, to go straight to the police."

M. Costeclar's dull eye was vacillating.

"I did not think I was doing wrong," he muttered. "Favoral was my friend."

"And that's the reason why you were coming to propose to Mlle. Favoral to become your mistress? There she is, you thought, without resources, literally without bread, without relatives, without friends to protect her: this is the time to come forward. And thinking you could be cowardly, vile, and infamous with impunity, you came."

To be thus treated, he, the successful man, in presence of this young girl, whom, a moment before, he was crushing with his impudent opulence, no, M. Costeclar could not stand it. Losing completely his head, "You should have let me know, then," he exclaimed, "that she was your mistress."

Something like a flame pa.s.sed over M. de Tregars' face. His eyes flashed. Rising in all the height of his wrath, which broke out terrible at last, "Ah, you scoundrel!" he exclaimed.

M. Costeclar threw himself suddenly to one side.

"Sir!"

But at one bound M. de Tregars had caught him.

"On your knees!" he cried.

And, seizing him by the collar with an iron grip, he lifted him clear off the floor, and then threw him down violently upon both knees.

"Speak!" he commanded. "Repeat,-'Mademoiselle'"

M. Costeclar had expected worse from M. de Tregars' look. A horrible fear had instantly crushed within him all idea of resistance.

"Mademoiselle," he stuttered in a choking voice. "I am the vilest of wretches," continued Marius. M. Costeclar's livid face was oscillating like an inert object.

"I am," he repeated, "the vilest of wretches."

"And I beg of you-"

But Mlle. Gilberte was sick of the sight.

"Enough," she interrupted, "enough!"

Feeling no longer upon his shoulders the heavy hand of M. de Tregars, the stock-broker rose with difficulty to his feet. So livid was his face, that one might have thought that his whole blood had turned to gall.

Dusting with the end of his glove the knees of his trousers, and restoring as best he could the harmony of his toilet, which had been seriously disturbed, "Is it showing any courage," he grumbled, "to abuse one's physical strength?"

M. de Tregars had already recovered his self-possession; and Mlle. Gilberte thought she could read upon his face regret for his violence.

"Would it be better to make use of what you know?" M. Costeclar joined his hands.

"You would not do that," he said. "What good would it do you to ruin me?"

"None," answered M. de Tregars: "you are right. But yourself?"

And, looking straight into M. Costeclar's eyes,-"If you could be of service to me," he inquired, "would you be willing?"

"Perhaps. That I might recover possession of the papers you have."

M. de Tregars was thinking.

"After what has just taken place," he said at last, "an explanation is necessary between us. I will be at your house in an hour. Wait for me."

M. Costeclar had become more pliable than his own lavender kid gloves: in fact, alarmingly pliable.

"I am at your command, sir," he replied to M. de Tregars.

And, bowing to the ground before Mlle. Gilberte, he left the parlor; and, a few moments after, the street-door was heard to close upon him.

"Ah, what a wretch!" exclaimed the girl, dreadfully agitated. "Marius, did you see what a look he gave us as he went out?"

"I saw it," replied M. de Tregars.

"That man hates us: he will not hesitate to commit a crime to avenge the atrocious humiliation you have just inflicted upon him."

"I believe it too."

Mlle. Gilberte made a gesture of distress.

"Why did you treat him so harshly?" she murmured.

"I had intended to remain calm, and it would have been politic to have done so. But there are some insults which a man of heart cannot endure. I do not regret what I have done."

A long pause followed; and they remained standing, facing each other, somewhat embarra.s.sed. Mlle. Gilberte felt ashamed of the disorder of her dress. M. de Tregars wondered how he could have been bold enough to enter this house.

"You have heard of our misfortune," said the young girl at last.

"I read about it this morning, in the papers."

"What! the papers know already?"

"Every thing."

"And our name is printed in them?"

"Yes."

She covered her face with her two hands.

"What disgrace!" she said.

"At first," went on M. de Tregars, "I could hardly believe what I read. I hastened to come; and the first shopkeeper I questioned confirmed only too well what I had seen in the papers. From that moment, I had but one wish,-to see and speak to you. When I reached the door, I recognized M. Costeclar's equipage, and I had a presentiment of the truth. I inquired from the concierge for your mother or your brother, and heard that Maxence had gone out a few moments before, and that Mme. Favoral had just left in a carriage with M. Chapelain, the old lawyer. At the idea that you were alone with Costeclar, I hesitated no longer. I ran up stairs, and, finding the door open, had no occasion to ring."

Mlle. Gilberte could hardly repress the sobs that rose to her throat.

"I never hoped to see you again," she stammered; "and you'll find there on the table the letter I had just commenced for you when M. Costeclar interrupted me."

M. de Tregars took it up quickly. Two lines only were written. He read: "I release you from your engagement, Marius. Henceforth you are free."

He became whiter than his shirt.

"You wish to release me from my engagement!" he exclaimed. "You-"

"Is it not my duty? Ah! if it had only been our fortune, I should perhaps have rejoiced to lose it. I know your heart. Poverty would have brought us nearer together. But it's honor, Marius, honor that is lost too! The name I bear is forever stained. Whether my father is caught, or whether he escapes, he will be tried all the same, condemned, and sentenced to a degrading penalty for embezzlement and forgery."

If M. de Tregars was allowing her to proceed thus, it was because he felt all his thoughts whirling in his brain; because she looked so beautiful thus, all in tears, and her hair loose; because there arose from her person so subtle a charm, that words failed him to express the sensations that agitated him.

"Can you," she went on, "take for your wife the daughter of a dishonored man? No, you cannot. Forgive me, then, for having for a moment turned away your life from its object; forgive the sorrow which I have caused you; leave me to the misery of my fate; forget me!"

She was suffocating.

"Ah, you have never loved me!" exclaimed Marius.

Raising her hands to heaven, "Thou hearest him, great G.o.d!" she uttered, as if shocked by a blasphemy.

"Would it be easy for you to forget me then? Were I to be struck by misfortune, would you break our engagement, cease to love me?"

She ventured to take his hands, and, pressing them between hers, "To cease loving you no longer depends on my will," she murmured with quivering lips. "Poor, abandoned of all, disgraced, criminal even, I should love you still and always."

With a pa.s.sionate gesture, Marius threw his arm around her waist, and, drawing her to his breast, covered her blonde hair with burning kisses.

"Well, 'tis thus that I love you too!" he exclaimed, "and with all my soul, exclusively, and for life! What do I care for your parents? Do I know them? Your father-does he exist? Your name -it is mine, the spotless name of the Tregars. You are my wife! mine, mine!"

She was struggling feebly: an almost invincible stupor was creeping over her. She felt her reason disturbed, her energy giving way, a film before her eyes, the air failing to her heaving chest.

A great effort of her will restored her to consciousness. She withdrew gently, and sank upon a chair, less strong against joy than she had been against sorrow.

"Pardon me," she stammered, "pardon me for having doubted you!"

M. de Tregars was not much less agitated than Mlle. Gilberte: but he was a man; and the springs of his energy were of a superior temper. In less than a minute he had fully recovered his self-possession and imposed upon his features their accustomed expression. Drawing a chair by the side of Mlle. Gilberte, "Permit me, my friend," he said, "to remind you that our moments are numbered, and that there are many details which it is urgent that I should know."

"What details?" she asked, raising her head.

"About your father."

She looked at him with an air of profound surprise.

"Do you not know more about it than I do?" she replied, "more than my mother, more than any of us? Did you not, whilst following up the people who robbed your father, strike mine unwittingly? And 'tis I, wretch that I am, who inspired you to that fatal resolution; and I have not the heart to regret it."

M. de Tregars had blushed imperceptibly. "How did you know?" he began.

"Was it not said that you were about to marry Mlle. de Thaller?"

He drew up suddenly.

"Never," he exclaimed, "has this marriage existed, except in the brain of M. de Thaller, and, more still, of the Baroness de Thaller. That ridiculous idea occurred to her because she likes my name, and would be delighted to see her daughter Marquise de Tregars. She has never breathed a word of it to me; but she has spoken of it everywhere, with just enough secrecy to give rise to a good piece of parlor gossip. She went so far as to confide to several persons of my acquaintance the amount of the dowry, thinking thus to encourage me. As far as I could, I warned you against this false news through the Signor Gismondo."

"The Signor Gismondo relieved me of cruel anxieties," she replied; "but I had suspected the truth from the first. Was I not the confidante of your hopes? Did I not know your projects? I had taken for granted that all this talk about a marriage was but a means to advance yourself in M. de Thaller's intimacy without awaking his suspicions."

M. de Tregars was not the man to deny a true fact.

"Perhaps, indeed, I have not been wholly foreign to M. Favoral's disaster. At least I may have hastened it a few months, a few days only, perhaps; for it was inevitable, fatal. Nevertheless, had I suspected the real facts, I would have given up my designs -Gilberte, I swear it-rather than risk injuring your father. There is no undoing what is done; but the evil may, perhaps, be somewhat lessened."

Mlle. Gilberte started.

"Great heavens!" she exclaimed, "do you, then, believe my father innocent?"

Better than any one else, Mlle. Gilberte must have been convinced of her father's guilt. Had she not seen him humiliated and trembling before M. de Thaller? Had she not heard him, as it were, acknowledge the truth of the charge that was brought against him? But at twenty hope never forsakes us, even in presence of facts.

And when she understood by M. de Tregars' silence that she was mistaken, "It's madness," she murmured, dropping her head: "I feel it but too well. But the heart speaks louder than reason. It is so cruel to be driven to despise one's father!"

She wiped the tears which filled her eyes, and, in a firmer voice, "What happened is so incomprehensible!" she went on. "How can I help imagining some one of those mysteries which time alone unravels. For twenty-four hours we have been losing ourselves in idle conjectures, and, always and fatally, we come to this conclusion, that my father must be the victim of some mysterious intrigue.

"M. Chapelain, whom a loss of a hundred and sixty thousand francs has not made particularly indulgent, is of that opinion."

"And so am I," exclaimed Marius.

"You see, then-"

But without allowing her to proceed and taking gently her hand, "Let me tell you all," he interrupted, "and try with you to find an issue to this horrible situation. Strange rumors are afloat about M. Favoral. It is said that his austerity was but a mask, his sordid economy a means of gaining confidence. It is affirmed that in fact he abandoned himself to all sorts of disorders; that he had, somewhere in Paris, an establishment, where he lavished the money of which he was so sparing here. Is it so? The same thing is said of all those in whose hands large fortunes have melted."

The young girl had become quite red.

"I believe that is true," she replied. "The commissary of police stated so to us. He found among my father's papers receipted bills for a number of costly articles, which could only have been intended for a woman."

M. de Tregars looked perplexed.

"And does any one know who this woman is?" he asked.

"Whoever she may be, I admit that she may have cost M. Favoral considerable sums. But can she have cost him twelve millions?"

"Precisely the remark which M. Chapelain made."

"And which every sensible man must also make. I know very well that to conceal for years a considerable deficit is a costly operation, requiring purchases and sales, the handling and shifting of funds, all of which is ruinous in the extreme. But, on the other hand, M. Favoral was making money, a great deal of money. He was rich: he was supposed to be worth millions. Otherwise, Costeclar would never have asked your hand."

"M. Chapelain pretends that at a certain time my father had at least fifty thousand francs a year."

"It's bewildering."

For two or three minutes M. de Tregars remained silent, reviewing in his mind every imaginable eventuality, and then, "But no matter," he resumed. "As soon as I heard this morning the amount of the deficit, doubts came to my mind. And it is for that reason, dear friend, that I was so anxious to see you and speak to you. It would be necessary for me to know exactly what occurred here last night."

Rapidly, but without omitting a single useful detail, Mlle. Gilberte narrated the scenes of the previous night-the sudden appearance of M. de Thaller, the arrival of the commissary of police, M. Favoral's escape, thanks to Maxence's presence of mind. Every one of her father's words had remained present to her mind; and it was almost literally that she repeated his strange speeches to his indignant friends, and his incoherent remarks at the moment of flight, when, whilst acknowledging his fault, he said that he was not as guilty as they thought; that, at any rate, he was not alone guilty; and that he had been shamefully sacrificed. When she had finished, "That's exactly what I thought," said M. de Tregars.