But he was bound by an oath; he knew that a powerful hand would save these women at the brink of the precipice.  More than this, he saw an immense fortune at the end of his road of crime, and quieted his conscience by saying that he would redeem his present cruelty by honest kindness in the future.  Once out of the clutches of Clameran, he would be a better man, and try to return some of the kind affection shown him by these poor women.

Stifling his better impulses, he said harshly to Mme. Fauvel, “Give me the jewels; I will take them to the pawnbroker’s.”  Mme. Fauvel handed him a box containing a set of diamonds.  It was a present from her husband the day he became worth a million.

And so pressing was the want of these women who were surrounded by princely luxury, with their ten servants, beautiful blooded horses, and jewels which were the admiration of Paris, that they implored him to bring them some of the money which he would procure on the diamonds, to meet their daily wants.

He promised, and kept his word.

But they had revealed a new source, a mine to be worked; he took advantage of it.

One by one, all Mme. Fauvel’s jewels followed the way of the diamonds; and, when hers were all gone, those of Madeleine were given up.

A recent law-suit, which showed how a young and beautiful woman had been kept in a state of terror and almost poverty, by a rascal who had possession of her letters, a sad case which no honest man could read without blushing for his sex, has revealed to what depths human infamy can descend.

And such abominable crimes are not so rare as people suppose.

How many men are supported entirely by stolen secrets, from the coachman who claims ten louis every month of the foolish girl whom he drove to a rendezvous, to the elegant dandy in light kids, who discovered a financial swindle, and makes the parties interested buy his silence, cannot be known.

This is called the extortion of hush-money, the most cowardly and infamous of crimes, which the law, unfortunately, can rarely overtake and punish.

“Extortion of hush-money,” said an old prefect of police, “is a trade which supports at least a thousand scamps in Paris alone.  Sometimes we know the black-mailer and his victim, and yet we can do nothing.  Moreover, if we were to catch the villain in the very act, and hand him over to justice, the victim, in her fright at the chance of her secret being discovered, would turn against us.”

It is true, extortion has become a business.  Very often it is the business of loafers, who spend plenty of money, when everyone knows they have no visible means of support, and of whom people ask, “What do they live upon?”

The poor victims do not know how easy it would be to rid themselves of their tyrants.  The police are fully capable of faithfully keeping secrets confided to them.  A visit to the Rue de Jerusalem, a confidential communication with a head of the bureau, who is as silent as a father confessor, and the affair is arranged, without noise, without publicity, without anyone ever being the wiser.  There are traps for “master extortioners,” which work well in the hands of the police.