“It became known that she had received Malgat two or three times secretly, for he did not openly enter her house; and the penny papers had it, that ‘the fair stranger was no stranger to small peculations.’  Public opinion was veering around, when it was reported that she had been summoned to appear before a magistrate.  That, however, was fortunate for her; she came out from the trial whiter and purer than Alpine snow.”

“Oh!”

“And so perfectly cleared, that, when the whole matter was brought up in court, she was not even summoned as a witness.”

Daniel started up, and exclaimed,—­

“What!  Malgat had the sublime self-abnegation to undergo the agonies of a trial, and the infamy of a condemnation, without allowing a word to escape?”

“No.  For the simple reason that Malgat was sentenced in contumaciam to ten years in the penitentiary.”

“And what has become of the poor wretch?”

“Who knows?  They say he killed himself.  Two months later, a half decomposed body was found in the forest of Saint Germain, which people declared to be Malgat.  However”—­

He had become livid, in his turn; but he continued in an almost inaudible voice, as if to meet Daniel’s objections before they were expressed,—­

“However, somebody who used to be intimate with Malgat has assured me that he met him one day in Dronot Street, before the great auction-mart.  The man said he recognized him, although he seemed to be most artistically disguised.  This is what has set me thinking more than once, that, if people were not mistaken, a day might, after all, yet come, when Miss Sarah would have a terrible bill to settle with her implacable creditor.”

He passed his hand across his brow as if to drive away such uncomfortable thoughts, and then said with a forced laugh,—­

“Now, my dear fellow, I have come to the end of my budget.  The details were all given me by Miss Sarah’s friends as well as by her enemies.  Some you may read of in the papers; but most I know from my own long and patient observation.  And, if you ask me what interest I could have in knowing such a woman, I will tell you frankly, that you see before you one of her victims; for my dear Daniel, I have to confess it, I also have been in love with her; and how!  But I was too small a personage, and too poor a devil, to be worth a serious thought of Miss Brandon.  As soon as she felt sure that her abominable tricks had set my head on fire, and that I had become an idiot, a madman, a stupid fool—­on that very day she laughed in my face.  Ah!  I tell you, she played with me as if I had been a child, and then she sent me off as if I had been a lackey.  And now I hate her mortally, as I loved her almost criminally.  Therefore, if I can help you, in secret, without becoming known, you may count upon me.”

Why should Daniel have doubted the truthfulness of his friend’s statements?  Had he not himself, and quite voluntarily, confessed his own folly, his own love, anticipating all questions, and making a clean breast of the whole matter?