“I am cowed,” observed Ste. Marie, lighting a cigarette.  “I quail.”

“Never,” declaimed the gentleman from Marseilles, “have I received an insult without returning blow for blow!  My blood boils!”

“The hundred francs, Monsieur,” said Ste. Marie, “will doubtless cool it.  Besides, we stray from our sheep.  Reflect, my friend!  I have not insulted you.  I have asked you a simple question.  To be sure, I have said that I knew your errand here was not—­not altogether sincere, but I protest, Monsieur, that no blame attaches to yourself.  The blame is your employer’s.  You have performed your mission with the greatest of honesty—­the most delicate and faithful sense of honor.  That is understood.”

The gentleman with the beard strode across to one of the windows and leaned his head upon his hand.  His shoulders still heaved with emotion, but he no longer trembled.  The terrible crisis bade fair to pass.  Then, abruptly, in the frank and open Latin way, he burst into tears, and wept with copious profusion, while Ste. Marie smoked his cigarette and waited.

When at length the Marseillais turned back into the room he was calm once more, but there remained traces of storm and flood.  He made a gesture of indescribable and pathetic resignation.

“Monsieur,” he exclaimed, “you have a heart of gold—­of gold, Monsieur!  You understand.  Behold us, two men of honor!  Monsieur,” he said, “I had no choice.  I was poor.  I saw myself face to face with the misere.  What would you?  I fell.  We are all weak flesh.  I accepted the commission of the pig who sent me here to you.”

Ste. Marie smoothed the pink-and-blue bank-note in his hands, and the other man’s eye clung to it as though he were starving and the bank-note was food.

“The name?” prompted Ste. Marie.

The gentleman from Marseilles tossed up his hands.

“Monsieur already knows it.  Why should I hesitate?  The name is Ducrot.”

“What!” cried Ste. Marie, sharply.  “What is that?  Ducrot?”

“But naturally!” said the other man, with some wonder.  “Monsieur said he knew.  Certainly, Ducrot.  A little, withered man, bald on the top of the head, creases down the cheeks, a mustache like this”—­he made a descriptive gesture—­“a little chin.  A man like an elderly cat.  M. Ducrot.”

Ste. Marie gave a sigh of relief.

“Yes, yes,” said he.  “Ducrot is as good a name as another.  The gentleman has more than one, it appears.  Monsieur, the hundred-franc note is yours.”

The gentleman from Marseilles took it with a slightly trembling hand, and began to bow himself toward the door as if he feared that his host would experience a change of heart; but Ste. Marie checked him, saying: 

“One moment.  I was thinking,” said he, “that you would perhaps not care to present yourself to your—­employer, M. Ducrot, immediately—­not for a few days, at least, in view of the fact that certain actions of mine will show him your mission has—­well, miscarried.  It would, perhaps, be well for you not to communicate with M. Ducrot.  He might be displeased with you.”