“They refused.  And when he begged and prayed, falling on his knees before Miss Sarah, Sir Thorn seized him by the shoulders, and turned him out of the house.”

Maxime, overcome by his intense excitement, fell into an easy-chair, and remained there for a considerable time, his eyes fixed, his brow darkened, repenting himself, no doubt, of his candor, his wrath, and his forgetfulness of all he owed to himself and to others.

But, when he rose again, his rare strength of will enabled him to assume his usual phlegmatic manner; and he continued in a mocking tone,—­

“I see in your face, Daniel, that you think the story is monstrous, improbable, almost impossible.  Nevertheless, four years ago, it was believed all over Paris, and set off by a number of hideous details which I will spare you.  If you care to look at the papers of that year, you will find it everywhere.  But four years are four centuries in Paris.  To say nothing of the many similar stories that have happened since.”

Daniel said nothing, he only bowed his head sadly.  He felt a kind of painful emotion, such as he had never before experienced in his life.

“It is not so much the story itself,” he said at last, “that overcomes me so completely.  What I cannot comprehend is, how this woman could refuse the man whose accomplice she had been the small pittance he required in order to evade justice, and to escape to Belgium.”

“Nevertheless, that was so,” repeated M. de Brevan; and then he added emphatically, “at least, they say so.”

Daniel did not notice this attempt to become more cautious again.  He continued pensively,—­

“Is it not very improbable that Miss Brandon should not have been afraid to exasperate the unfortunate man, and to drive him to desperate measures?  In his furious rage, he might have left the house, rushed to a police-officer, and confessed to him every thing, laying the evidence he had in his hands before a magistrate, and”—­

“You say,” replied Brevan, interrupting him with a dry, sardonic laugh, “precisely what all the advocates of the fair American said at that time.  But I tell you, that her peculiarity is exactly the daring with which she ventures upon the most dangerous steps.  She does not pretend to avoid difficulties; she crushes them.  Her prudence consists in carrying imprudence to the farthest limits.”

“But”—­

“You ought to credit her, besides, with sufficient astuteness and experience to know that she had taken the most careful precautions, having destroyed every evidence of her own complicity, and feeling quite safe in that direction.  Moreover, she had studied Malgat’s character, as she studied afterwards Kergrist’s.  She was quite sure that neither of them would accuse her, even at the moment of death.  And yet, in the case of this Mutual Discount Society, her calculations did not prove absolutely correct.”

“How so?”