“My dear Montefiore,” said the ex-quartermaster, after making a tour of the salon, “I owe you a hundred thousand francs; but my money is in Bordeaux, where I have left my wife.”

Diard had the money in bank-bills in his pocket; but with the self-possession and rapid bird’s-eye view of a man accustomed to catch at all resources, he still hoped to recover himself by some one of the endless caprices of play.  Montefiore had already mentioned his intention of visiting Bordeaux.  Had he paid his debt on the spot, Diard would have been left without the power to take his revenge; a revenge at cards often exceeds the amount of all preceding losses.  But these burning expectations depended on the marquis’s reply.

“Wait, my dear fellow,” said Montefiore, “and we will go together to Bordeaux.  In all conscience, I am rich enough to-day not to wish to take the money of an old comrade.”

Three days later Diard and Montefiore were in Bordeaux at a gambling table.  Diard, having won enough to pay his hundred thousand francs, went on until he had lost two hundred thousand more on his word.  He was gay as a man who swam in gold.  Eleven o’clock sounded; the night was superb.  Montefiore may have felt, like Diard, a desire to breathe the open air and recover from such emotions in a walk.  The latter proposed to the marquis to come home with him to take a cup of tea and get his money.

“But Madame Diard?” said Montefiore.

“Bah!” exclaimed the husband.

They went down-stairs; but before taking his hat Diard entered the dining-room of the establishment and asked for a glass of water.  While it was being brought, he walked up and down the room, and was able, without being noticed, to pick up one of those small sharp-pointed steel knives with pearl handles which are used for cutting fruit at dessert.

“Where do you live?” said Montefiore, in the courtyard, “for I want to send a carriage there to fetch me.”

Diard told him the exact address.

“You see,” said Montefiore, in a low voice, taking Diard’s arm, “that as long as I am with you I have nothing to fear; but if I came home alone and a scoundrel were to follow me, I should be profitable to kill.”

“Have you much with you?”

“No, not much,” said the wary Italian, “only my winnings.  But they would make a pretty fortune for a beggar and turn him into an honest man for the rest of his life.”

Diard led the marquis along a lonely street where he remembered to have seen a house, the door of which was at the end of an avenue of trees with high and gloomy walls on either side of it.  When they reached this spot he coolly invited the marquis to precede him; but as if the latter understood him he preferred to keep at his side.  Then, no sooner were they fairly in the avenue, then Diard, with the agility of a tiger, tripped up the marquis with a kick behind the knees, and putting a foot on his neck