Castanier heard her with indifference.  For all answer, he indicated Leon to her with a fiendish laugh.

“The guillotine is waiting for him,” he repeated.

“No, no, no!  He shall not leave this house.  I will save him!” she cried.  “Yes; I will kill anyone who lays a finger upon him!  Why will you not save him?” she shrieked aloud; her eyes were blazing, her hair unbound.  “Can you save him?”

“I can do everything.”

“Why do you not save him?”

“Why?” shouted Castanier, and his voice made the ceiling ring.—­“Eh! it is my revenge!  Doing evil is my trade!”

“Die?” said Aquilina; “must he die, my lover?  Is it possible?”

She sprang up and snatched a stiletto from a basket that stood on the chest of drawers and went to Castanier, who began to laugh.

“You know very well that steel cannot hurt me now—­”

Aquilina’s arm suddenly dropped like a snapped harp string.

“Out with you, my good friend,” said the cashier, turning to the sergeant, “and go about your business.”

He held out his hand; the other felt Castanier’s superior power, and could not choose but obey.

“This house is mine; I could send for the commissary of police if I chose, and give you up as a man who has hidden himself on my premises, but I would rather let you go; I am a fiend, I am not a spy.”

“I shall follow him!” said Aquilina.

“Then follow him,” returned Castanier.—­“Here, Jenny—­”

Jenny appeared.

“Tell the porter to hail a cab for them.—­Here, Naqui,” said Castanier, drawing a bundle of banknotes from his pocket; “you shall not go away like a pauper from a man who loves you still.”

He held out three hundred thousand francs.  Aquilina took the notes, flung them on the floor, spat on them, and trampled upon them in a frenzy of despair.

“We will leave this house on foot,” she cried, “without a farthing of your money.—­Jenny, stay where you are.”

“Good evening!” answered the cashier, as he gathered up the notes again.  “I have come back from my journey.—­Jenny,” he added, looking at the bewildered waiting maid, “you seem to me to be a good sort of girl.  You have no mistress now.  Come here.  This evening you shall have a master.”

Aquilina, who felt safe nowhere, went at once with the sergeant to the house of one of her friends.  But all Leon’s movements were suspiciously watched by the police, and after a time he and three of his friends were arrested.  The whole story may be found in the newspapers of that day.

* * * * *

Castanier felt that he had undergone a mental as well as a physical transformation.  The Castanier of old no longer existed—­the boy, the young Lothario, the soldier who had proved his courage, who had been tricked into a marriage and disillusioned, the cashier, the passionate lover who had committed a crime for Aquilina’s sake.  His inmost nature had suddenly asserted itself.  His brain had expanded, his senses had developed.  His thoughts comprehended the whole world; he saw all the things of earth as if he had been raised to some high pinnacle above the world.