“What then?”

“Cosmo Mornington’s hundred millions will be wholly devoted to making roads and building schools in the south of Morocco and the northern Congo.”

“In the Mauretanian Empire which you are giving us?” said Valenglay, laughing.  “By Jove, it’s a fine work and I second it with all my heart.  An empire and an imperial budget to keep it up with!  Upon my word, Don Luis has behaved well to his country, and has handsomely paid the debts—­of Arsene Lupin!”

* * * * *

A month later Don Luis Perenna and Mazeroux embarked in the yacht which had brought Don Luis to France.  Florence was with them.  Before sailing they heard of the death of Jean Vernocq, who had managed to poison himself in spite of all the precautions taken to prevent him.

On his arrival in Africa, Don Luis Perenna, Sultan of Mauretania, found his old associates and accredited Mazeroux to them and to his grand dignitaries.  He organized the government to follow on his abdication and precede the annexation of the new empire by France, and he had several secret interviews on the Moorish border with General Leauty, commanding the French troops, interviews in the course of which they thought out all the measures to be executed in succession so as to lend to the conquest of Morocco an appearance of facility which would otherwise be difficult to explain.

The future was now assured.  Soon the thin screen of rebellious tribes standing between the French and the pacified districts would fall to pieces, revealing an orderly empire, provided with a regular constitution, with good roads, schools, and courts of law, a flourishing empire in full working order.

Then, when his task was done, Don Luis abdicated.

* * * * *

He has now been back for over two years.  Every one remembers the stir caused by his marriage with Florence Levasseur.  The controversy was renewed; and many of the newspapers clamoured for Arsene Lupin’s arrest.  But what could the authorities do?

Although nobody doubted who he really was, although the name of Arsene Lupin and the name of Don Luis Perenna consisted of the same letters, and people ended by remarking the coincidence, legally speaking, Arsene Lupin was dead and Don Luis Perenna was alive; and there was no possibility of bringing Arsene Lupin back to life or of killing Don Luis Perenna.

He is to-day living in the village of Saint-Maclou, among those charming valleys which run down to the Oise.  Who does not know his modest little pink-washed house, with its green shutters and its garden filled with bright flowers?  People make up parties to go there from Paris on Sundays, in the hope of catching a sight, through the elder hedges, of the man who was Arsene Lupin, or of meeting him in the village square.

He is there, with his hair just touched with gray, his still youthful features, and a young man’s bearing; and Florence is there, too, with her pretty figure and the halo of fair hair around her happy face, unclouded by even the shadow of an unpleasant recollection.