“There is nothing low enough to be singular in M. Dupleisis.”

“Mademoiselle Milan, one week ago you and Edgar Fay went into the hall-way of Mr. Reed’s house together, and you went out alone.  Denial is useless, for I saw you.  If you remember, the door was banged violently, and it was you who did it.  A careless servant locked him in.  He opened the secret vault in that table, and abstracted diamonds worth a million.  You were wise in courting the Minister of War and Chief of Police, but your passports have been stopped.  No power under heaven can get you out of Rio.”

For the first time her countenance changed, and she looked at Dupleisis with a smile of contemptuous pity.

“So I was not wrong in suspecting you to be an agent of the police.  How strong an alloy of cunning exists in every fool!  The man whom you believe to have stolen a million is my own brother.  The letter which caused this display of sagacity was paid for out of my wretched weekly earnings.  At the sacrifice of every sou I owned, I came here to thwart the plot it spoke of.”

Dupleisis glanced at her with an incredulous sneer.

“He wrote to Paris for a woman to assist him,—­what weaklings you men are!—­and, utterly unable to prevent the larceny, I pretended to be his accomplice.  While you were exposing your ill-breeding by coarse criticisms on a people in every way your superior, I substituted for the real diamonds the paste gems you were so particular in noticing.  What was stolen is my property.  Go back to Mr. Reed, and tell him his diamonds are bundled into an old hat that hangs on the wall of his sitting-room; and tell him, furthermore, it was I who put them there.  I did court the favor of the Minister of War, but it was to put that man in the army.  I have watched over him for years, and, by the blessing of God, I will watch over him to the end.  He has never known me, nor will he——­” Suddenly she turned livid, and nervously clasped her hands over her breast.

“M.  Dupleisis, I regret my inability to be present at the Assembly; but, really, I am engaged.”

Dupleisis looked at her in astonishment.

Edgar Fay, pale and trembling, was standing behind them.  He must have heard every word; for he sunk helplessly and faint on the floor, hiding his face in the depth of his degradation.

Why should we follow them any further? Can I tell how the miserable man, cringing at the feet of that pure woman, narrated his dreary history of folly, extravagance, and dishonor?  Need it be said that, through all his dissipation, frivolity, and crime, his gentle sister clung to him, and, smiling through her tears, bade him go and sin no more?  She stole upon him like a shadow in the night, and, her labor of love ended, faded away.  No entreaty of the generous diamond-dealer dissuaded her; no apology of the detective turned her from the one fixed purpose.  The star of the Alcasar rose, culminated, and disappeared in two weeks.