“Then,” he resumed, “all is really over?”

“Of course.”

“Then I have been duped like the rest,—­like that poor Marquis de Tregars, whom you had made mad also.  But he, at least saved his honor; whereas I—­And I have no excuse; for I should have known.  I knew that you were but the bait which the Baron de Thaller held out to his victims.”

He waited for an answer; but she maintained a contemptuous silence.

“Then you think,” he said with a threatening laugh, “that it will all end that way?”

“What can you do?”

“There is such a thing as justice, I imagine, and judges too.  I can give myself up, and reveal every thing.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“That would be throwing yourself into the wolf’s mouth for nothing,” she said.  “You know better than any one else that my precautions are well enough taken to defy any thing you can do or say.  I have nothing to fear.”

“Are you quite sure of that?”

“Trust to me,” she said with a smile of perfect security.

The former cashier of the Mutual Credit made a terrible gesture; but, checking himself at once, he seized one of the baroness’s hands.  She withdrew it quickly, however, and, in an accent of insurmountable disgust,

“Enough, enough!” she said.

In the adjoining closet Marius de Tregars could feel Mme. Zelie Cadelle shuddering by his side.

“What a wretch that woman is!” she murmured; “and he—­what a base coward!”

The former cashier remained prostrated, striking the floor with his head.

“And you would forsake me,” he groaned, “when we are united by a past such as ours!  How could you replace me?  Where would you find a slave so devoted to your every wish?”

The baroness was getting impatient.

“Stop!” she interrupted,—­“stop these demonstrations as useless as ridiculous.”

This time he did start up, as if lashed with a whip and, double locking the door which communicated with the ante-chamber, he put the key in his pocket; and, with a step as stiff and mechanical as that of an automaton, he disappeared in the sleeping-room.

“He is going for a weapon,” whispered Mme. Cadelle.

It was also what Marius thought.

“Run down quick,” he said to Mme. Zelie.  “In a cab standing opposite No. 25, you will find Mlle. Gilberte Favoral waiting.  Let her come at once.”

And, rushing into the parlor,

“Fly!” he said to Mme. Thaller.

But she was as petrified by this apparition.

“M. de Tregars!”

“Yes, yes, me.  But hurry and go!”

And he pushed her into the closet.

It was but time.  Vincent Favoral reappeared upon the threshold of the bedroom.  But, if it was a weapon he had gone for, it was not for the one which Marius and Mme. Cadelle supposed.  It was a bundle of papers which he held in his hand.  Seeing M. de Tregars there, instead of Mme. de Thaller, an exclamation of terror and surprise rose to his lips.  He understood vaguely what must have taken place; that the man who stood there must have been concealed in the glass closet, and that he had assisted the baroness to escape.