“Gently, Mr. Dumont, gently!  Do not get into a passion!  May I ask what you mean by traitor?  Have I not served you faithfully?” interrogated the attorney, with a smile of assurance.

“Served me faithfully!” sneered Jaspar.  “You served me a cursed shabby trick above Baton Rouge, at the wood-yard.”

“My dear sir, you wrong me!  I did not injure you bodily, I trust?”

“No, sir!  You have not that satisfaction.”

“I rejoice to hear it.  All that I did was for your benefit,” returned the attorney, complacently.

“Do you take me for an idiot?”

“By no means!  You have shown your shrewdness too often to permit such a supposition.”

“What do you mean, then?” said Jaspar, a little mollified, in spite of himself, by the conciliatory assurance of De Guy.

“Simply that your interest demanded your absence.  I had not the time, then, to convince you of the fact; and, I trust, you will pardon the little subterfuge I adopted to promote your own views.”

Jaspar opened his eyes, and fixed them in a broad stare upon big companion.

“Explain yourself,” said he.

“Everything has come out right,—­has it not?”

“Yes.”

“You are in quiet possession?”

“Yes.”

“Then, sir, you may thank me for that little plan of mine at the wood-yard.  If I had not prevented you from continuing your journey, all your hopes would have been blasted.”

“I do not understand you.”

“Where is your niece now?” asked the attorney, as a shade of anxiety beclouded his brow.

“She was lost in the explosion,” replied Jaspar, with a calmness with which few persons can speak of the loss of near friends.

The attorney was particularly glad at this particular moment to ascertain that this, as he had before suspected, was Jaspar’s belief, and that this belief had lulled him into security.  He was not, however, so candid as to give expression to his sentiments on the subject.

“Precisely so!” exclaimed the attorney, as though no shade of doubt or anxiety had crossed him.  “The Chalmetta exploded her boiler.”

“Well!”

“Both Miss Dumont and her troublesome lover were lost,—­were they not?”

“Yes.”

“And, if you had continued on board, you would probably have shared their fate.”

“Yes; but do you mean to say you blowed the steamer up? asked Jaspar, with a sneer.

“Exactly so!”

“Fool! do you expect me to believe such a miserable rigmarole as this?”

“I hope you will, for it is strictly true,” returned the attorney, convincingly.

Jaspar looked incredulous, and resorted to the brandy-bottle, which seemed to bear the same relation to him that the oracle of Delphi did to the ancient Greeks.

“You do not think me capable of inventing such a story, I trust,” said De Guy, seriously.