LITMIR.BIZ

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first plan,” he began, “depends upon your approval. What would you say, if I proposed to you to renounce the affair altogether?”

      “What!”

      “Would you consent to disappear, leave France, and return to London, if I paid you a good round sum?”

      “What do you call a good round sum?”

      “I will give you a hundred and fifty thousand francs.”

      “My respected uncle,” said Raoul with a contemptuous shrug, “I am distressed to see how little you know me! You try to deceive me, to outwit me, which is ungenerous and foolish on your part; ungenerous, because it fails to carry out our agreement; foolish, because as you know well enough, my power equals yours.”

      “I don’t understand you.”

      “I am sorry for it. I understand myself, and that is sufficient. Oh! I understand you, my dear uncle. I have watched you with careful eyes, which are not to be deceived; I see through you clearly. If you offer me one hundred and fifty thousand francs, it is because you intend to walk off with half a million for yourself.”

      “You are talking like a fool,” said Clameran with virtuous indignation.

      “Not at all; I only judge the future by the past. Of all the large sums extorted from Mme. Fauvel, often against my wishes, I never received a tenth part.”

      “But you know we have a reserve fund.”

      “All very good; but you have the keeping of it, my good uncle. It is very nice for you, but not so funny for me. If our little plot were to be discovered to-morrow, you would walk off with the money-box, and leave your devoted nephew to be sent to prison.”

      “Ingrate!” muttered Louis, as if distressed at these undeserved reproaches of his protege.

      “You have hit on the very word I was trying to remember,” cried Raoul: “‘ingrate’ is the name that just suits you. But we have not time for this nonsense. I will end the matter by proving how you have been trying to deceive me.”

      “I would like to hear you do so if you can.”

      “Very good. In the first place, you told me that your brother only possessed a modest competency. Now, I learn that Gaston has an income of at least sixty thousand francs. It is useless for you to deny it; and how much is this property worth? A hundred thousand crowns. He had four hundred thousand francs deposited in M. Fauvel’s bank. Total, seven hundred thousand francs. And, besides all this, the broker in Oloron has orders to buy up a large amount of stocks and railroad shares, which will require large cash payments. I have not wasted my day, you see, and have obtained all the information I came for.”

      Raoul’s information was too concise and exact for Louis to deny it.

      “You might have sense enough,” Raoul went on, “to know how to manage your forces if you undertake to be a commander. We had a splendid game in our hands; and you, who held the cards, have made a perfect muddle of it.”

      “I think—”

      “That the game is lost? That is my opinion too, and all through you. You have no one to blame but yourself.”

      “I could not control events.”

      “Yes, you could, if you had been shrewd. Fools sit down and wait for an opportunity; sensible men make one. What did we agree upon in London? We were to implore my good mother to assist us a little, and, if she complied with our wishes, we were to be flattering and affectionate in our devotion to her. And what was the result? At the risk of killing the golden goose, you have made me torment the poor woman until she is almost crazy.”

      “It was prudent to hasten matters.”

      “You think so, do you? Was it also to hasten matters that you took it into your head to marry Madeleine? That made it necessary to let her into the secret; and, ever since, she has advised and set her aunt against us. I would not be surprised if she makes her confess everything to M. Fauvel, or even inform against us at the police-office.”

      “I love Madeleine!”

      “You told me that before. And suppose you do love her. You led me into this piece of business without having studied its various bearings, without knowing what you were about. No one but an idiot, my beloved uncle, would go and put his foot into a trap, and then say, ‘If I had only known about it!’ You should have made it your business to know everything. You came to me, and said, ‘Your father is dead,’ which was a lie to start with; perhaps you call it a mistake. He is living; and, after what we have done, I dare not appear before him. He would have left me a million, and now I shall not get a sou. He will find his Valentine, and then good-by.”

      “Enough!” angrily interrupted Louis. “If I have made a mistake, I know how to redeem it. I can save everything yet.”

      “You can? How so?”

      “That is my secret,” said Louis gloomily.

      Louis and Raoul were silent for a minute. And this silence between them, in this lonely spot, at dead of night, was so horribly significant that both of them shuddered.

      An abominable thought had flashed across their evil minds, and without a word or look they understood each other.

      Louis broke the ominous silence, by abruptly saying:

      “Then you refuse to disappear if I pay you a hundred and fifty thousand francs? Think it over before deciding: it is not too late yet.”

      “I have fully thought it over. I know you will not attempt to deceive me any more. Between certain ease, and the probability of an immense fortune, I choose the latter at all risks. I will share your success or your failure. We will swim or sink together.”

      “And you will follow my instructions?”

      “Blindly.”

      Raoul must have been very certain of Louis’s intentions of resorting to the most dangerous extremities, must have known exactly what he intended to do; for he did not ask him a single question. Perhaps he dared not. Perhaps he preferred doubt to shocking certainty, as if he could thus escape the remorse attendant upon criminal complicity.

      “In the first place,” said Louis, “you must at once return to Paris.”

      “I will be there in forty-eight hours.”

      “You must be very intimate at Mme. Fauvel’s, and keep me informed of everything that takes place in the family.”

      “I understand.”

      Louis laid his hand upon Raoul’s shoulder, as if to impress upon his mind what he was about to say.

      “You have a sure means of being restored to your mother’s confidence and affection, by blaming me for everything that has happened to distress her. Abuse me constantly. The more odious you render me in her eyes and those of Madeleine, the better you will serve me. Nothing would please me more than to be denied admittance to the house when I return to Paris. You must say that you have quarrelled with me, and that, if I still come to see you, it is because you cannot prevent it, and you will never voluntarily have any intercourse with me. That is the scheme; you can develop it.”

      Raoul listened to these strange instructions with astonishment.

      “What!” he cried: “you adore Madeleine, and take this means of showing it? An odd way of carrying on a courtship, I must confess. I will be shot if I can comprehend.”

      “There is no necessity for your comprehending.”

      “All right,” said Raoul submissively; “if you say so.”

      Then Louis reflected that no one could properly execute a commission without having at least an idea of its nature.

      “Did you ever hear,” he asked Raoul, “of the man who burnt down his lady-love’s house so as to have the bliss of carrying her out in his arms?”

      “Yes:

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