But at a glance Raoul discovered, on the upper shelf of the safe, three bundles of bank-notes.  He snatched them up with his left hand, and slipped them inside his vest.

Exhausted by the effort she had just made, Mme. Fauvel dropped Raoul’s arm, and, almost fainting with emotion, clung to the back of a chair.

“Have mercy, Raoul!” she moaned.  “I implore you to put back that money and I solemnly swear that I will give you twice as much to-morrow.  Oh, my son, have pity upon your unhappy mother!”

He paid no attention to these words of entreaty, but carefully examined the scratch on the safe.  He was alarmed at this trace of the robbery, which it was impossible for him to cover up.

“At least you will not take all,” said Mme. Fauvel; “just keep enough to save yourself, and put back the rest.”

“What good would that do?  The discovery will be made that the safe has been opened; so I might as well take all as a part.”

“Oh, no! not at all.  I can account to Andre; I will tell him I had a pressing need for a certain sum, and opened the safe to get it.”

In the meantime Raoul had carefully closed the safe.

“Come, mother, let us go back to the sitting-room.  A servant might go there to look for you, and be astonished at our absence.”

Raoul’s cruel indifference and cold calculations at such a moment filled Mme. Fauvel with indignation.  She saw that she had no influence over her son, that her prayers and tears had no effect upon his hard heart.

“Let them be astonished,” she cried:  “let them come here and find us!  I will be relieved to put an end to this tissue of crime.  Then Andre will know all, and drive me from his house.  Let come what will, I shall not sacrifice another victim.  Prosper will be accused of this theft to-morrow.  Clameran defrauded him of the woman he loved, and now you would deprive him of his honor!  I will have nothing to do with so base a crime.”

She spoke so loud and angrily that Raoul was alarmed.  He knew that the errand-boy slept in a room close by, and might be in bed listening to her, although it was early in the evening.

“Come upstairs!” he said, seizing Mme. Fauvel’s arm.

But she clung to a table and refused to move a step.

“I have been cowardly enough to sacrifice Madeleine,” she said, “but I will not ruin Prosper.”

Raoul had an argument in reserve which he knew would make Mme. Fauvel submit to his will.

“Now, really,” he said with a cynical laugh, “do you pretend that you do not know Prosper and I arranged this little affair together, and that he is to have half the booty?”

“Impossible!  I never will believe such a thing of Prosper!”

“Why, how do you suppose I discovered the secret word?  Who do you suppose disobeyed orders, and left the money in the safe?”

“Prosper is honest.”