M. de Tregars stopped him with a gesture.

“Mme. de Thaller cannot have correctly repeated my words to you, else you would not utter that word ‘slander.’”

“She has repeated them to me without the least change.”

“Then she cannot have told you the importance of the proofs I have in my hands.”

But the Baron persisted, as Mlle. Cesarine would have said, to “do it up in the tender style.”

“There is scarcely a family,” he resumed, “in which there is not some one of those painful secrets which they try to withhold from the wickedness of the world.  There is one in mine.  Yes, it is true, that before our marriage, my wife had had a child, whom poverty had compelled her to abandon.  We have since done everything that was humanly possible to find that child, but without success.  It is a great misfortune, which has weighed upon our life; but it is not a crime.  If, however, you deem it your interest to divulge our secret, and to disgrace a woman, you are free to do so:  I cannot prevent you.  But I declare it to you, that fact is the only thing real in your accusations.  You say that your father has been duped and defrauded.  From whom did you get such an idea?

“From Marcolet, doubtless, a man without character, who has become my mortal enemy since the day when he tried a sharp game on me, and came out second best.  Or from Costeclar, perhaps, who does not forgive me for having refused him my daughter’s hand, and who hates me because I know that he committed forgery once, and that he would be in prison but for your father’s extreme indulgence.  Well, Costeclar and Marcolet have deceived you.  If the Marquis de Tregars ruined himself, it is because he undertook a business that he knew nothing about, and speculated right and left.  It does not take long to sink a fortune, even without the assistance of thieves.

“As to pretend that I have benefitted by the embezzlements of my cashier that is simply stupid; and there can be no one to suggest such a thing, except Jottras and Saint Pavin, two scoundrels whom I have had ten times the opportunity to send to prison and who were the accomplices of Favoral.  Besides, the matter is in the hands of justice; and I shall prove in the broad daylight of the court-room, as I have already done in the office of the examining judge, that, to save the Mutual Credit, I have sacrificed more than half my private fortune.”

Tired of this speech, the evident object of which was to lead him to discuss, and to betray himself,

“Conclude, sir,” M. de Tregars interrupted harshly.  Still in the same placid tone,

“To conclude is easy enough,” replied the baron.  “My wife has told me that you were about to marry the daughter of my old cashier,—­a very handsome girl, but without a sou.  She ought to have a dowry.”

“Sir!”

“Let us show our hands.  I am in a critical position:  you know it, and you are trying to take advantage of it.  Very well:  we can still come to an understanding.  What would you say, if I were to give to Mlle. Gilberte the dowry I intended for my daughter?”