Madame Carthame fairly was in bed—­as was evident from the spirited conversation between herself and her vivacious daughter that was perfectly audible through the folding doors which separated the little parlor from her bedroom.  It was evident, also, that she was indisposed to rise.  However, her indisposition was overcome and in the course of twenty minutes or so she appeared arrayed in a frigid dignity and a loose wrapper.  Rose, meanwhile, had taken off her curl papers, and Jaune regarded her tumbled hair with ecstasy.

The tribunal being assembled, the prisoner was placed at the bar and the trial began.  It was an eminently irregular trial, looking at it from a legal point of view, for the verbal evidence all was hearsay.  But it also was extra-legal in that it was brief and decisive.  Brown gave his testimony in the shape of a repetition of the story that Jaune had told him had been told by Mr. Badger Brush’s groom; and when this was concluded, Jaune produced the jacket, razors, shears, and shaving brush, and stated the circumstances under which they had been found.  Then the prosecution rested.

Being questioned by the court—­that is to say, by Madame Carthame—­in his own defence, the Count replied gloomily that he hadn’t any.  “When I saw that horse fellow,” he said, “I knew that I was likely to get into trouble, and that was the reason why I wanted to get rid of these things.  And now the game is up.  It is all true.  I was a barber.  I am not a count.  My real name is Stumps.”

Then it was that Madame Carthame, blissfully ignorant of the fact that she had neglected to remove her nightcap, stood up in her place, with her wrapper gathered about her in a statuesque fashion, and in a tragic tone uttered the single word: 

“Sortez!”

And the Count went!

Out, out into the chill and gloom of night went the false Count, never to return; and with him went Madame Carthame’s fond hope that her daughter would be a countess, which also was the last barrier in the way of Jaune d’Antimoine’s love.  Perceiving that the force of fate inexorably was pressing upon her, Madame Carthame—­still in her night-cap—­bestowed upon Rose and Jaune the maternal blessing in a manner that, even allowing for the nightcap, was both stately and severe.

As at Vandyke Brown’s wedding Jaune d’Antimoine was radiantly magnificent in “The Marquis Suit,” adding splendor to the ceremony and rendering himself most pleasing in the eyes of Rose Carthame; so, a month later, he was yet more radiant when he wore the famous suit again, in the church of Saint Vincent de Paul, and was himself married.

Conte Crayon brought Mr. Badger Brush down to the wedding, and the groom came too, and the tailor got wind of it and came without being asked—­and had to be implored not to work it up into an advertisement, as he very much wanted to do.  Mrs. Vandyke Brown, just home from her wedding journey, was the first—­after the kiss of Madame Carthame had been sternly bestowed—­to kiss the bride; and Mr. Badger Brush irreverently whispered to Conte Crayon that he wished, by gad! he had her chance!