to creep into my heart, and, as the minutes passed by, assume more vivid color and more tangible reality.  Why should I not profit by this stolen secret?  I went to the desk and asked for some wafers and a Directory.  Then, returning, I fastened the torn fragments upon a clean sheet of paper, discovered the address of the writer, and then left the cafe.  The house was situated in the Rue Chaussee d’Autin.  For fully half an hour I paced up and down before his magnificent dwelling-place.  Was he alive?  Had the reply of Charles been in the affirmative?  I decided at last to venture, and rang the bell.  A liveried domestic appeared at my summons, and said that his master did not receive visitors at that hour; besides, he was at dinner.  I was exasperated at the man’s insolence, and replied hotly, ’If you want to save your master from a terrible misfortune, go and tell him that a man has brought him the rough draft of the letter he wrote a little time back at the Cafe Semblon.’  The man obeyed me without a word, no doubt impressed by the earnestness of my manner.  My message must have caused intense consternation, for in a moment the footman reappeared, and, in an obsequious manner, said, ‘Follow at once, sir; my master is waiting for you.’  He led me into a large room, magnificently furnished as a library, and in the centre of this room stood the man of the Cafe Semblon.  His face was deadly pale, and his eyes blazed with fury.  I was so agitated that I could hardly speak.

“‘You have picked up the scraps of paper I threw away?’ exclaimed he.

“I nodded, and showed him the fragments fastened on to the sheet of note-paper.

“‘How much do you want for that?’ asked he.  ’I will give you a thousand francs.’

“I declare to you, gentlemen, that up to this time I had no intention of making money by the secret.  My intention in going had been simply to say, ’I bring you this paper, of which some one else might have taken an undue advantage.  I have done you a service; lend me a hundred francs.’  This is what I meant to say, but his behavior irritated me, and I answered,—­

“‘No, I want two thousand francs.’

“He opened a drawer, drew out a bundle of banknotes, and threw them in my face.

“‘Pay yourself, you villain!’ said he.

“I can, I fear, never make you understand what I felt at this undeserved insult.  I was not myself, and Heaven knows that I was not responsible for any crime that I might have committed in the frenzy of the moment, and I was nearly doing so.  That man will, perhaps, never see death so near him, save at his last hour.  On his writing table lay one of those Catalan daggers, which he evidently used as a paper-cutter.  I snatched it up, and was about to strike, when the recollection of Marie dying of cold and starvation occurred to me.  I dashed the knife to the ground, and rushed from the house in a state bordering on insanity.  I went into that