Mme. Zelie stepped back as though she had trodden on a snake.

“It’s impossible!” she cried.

“It is the exact truth.  Haven’t you seen in the papers the case of Vincent Favoral, cashier of the Mutual Credit?”

And, taking a paper from his pocket, he handed it to the young woman, saying, “Read.”

But she pushed it back, not without a slight blush.  “Oh, I believe you!” she said.

The fact is, and Marius understood it, she did not read very fluently.

“The worst of M. Vincent Favoral’s conduct,” he resumed, “is, that, while he was throwing away money here by the handful, he subjected his family to the most cruel privations.”

“Oh!”

“He refused the necessaries of life to his wife, the best and the worthiest of women; he never gave a cent to his son; and he deprived his daughter of every thing.”

“Ah, if I could have suspected such a thing!” murmured Mme. Zelie.

“Finally, and to cap the—­climax, he has gone, leaving his wife and children literally without bread.”

Transported with indignation,

“Why, that man must have been a horrible old scoundrel!” exclaimed the young woman.

This is just the point to which M. de Tregars wished to bring her.

“And now,” he resumed, “you must understand the enormous interest we have in knowing what has become of him.”

“I have already told you.”

M. de Tregars had risen, in his turn.  Taking Mme. Zelie’s hands, and fixing upon her one of those acute looks, which search for the truth down to the innermost recesses of the conscience,

“Come, my dear child,” he began in a penetrating voice, “you are a worthy and honest girl.  Will you leave in the most frightful despair a family who appeal to your heart?  Be sure that no harm will ever happen through us to Vincent Favoral.”

She raised her hand, as they do to take an oath in a court of justice, and, in a solemn tone,

“I swear,” she uttered, “that I went to the station with M. Vincent; that he assured me that he was going to Brazil; that he had his passage-ticket; and that all his baggage was marked, ’Rio de Janeiro.’”

The disappointment was great:  and M. de Tregars manifested it by a gesture.

“At least,” he insisted, “tell me who the woman was whose place you took here.”

But already had the young woman returned to her feeling of mistrust.

“How in the world do you expect me to know?” she replied.  “Go and ask Amanda.  I have no accounts to give you.  Besides, I have to go and finish packing my trunks.  So good-by, and enjoy yourself.”

And she went out so quick, that she caught Amanda, the chambermaid, kneeling behind the door.

“So that woman was listening,” thought M. de Tregars, anxious and dissatisfied.

But it was in vain that he begged Mme. Zelie to return, and to hear a single word more.  She disappeared; and he had to resign himself to leave the house without learning any thing more for the present.