"Ah, my dear Banque de France, even in this light I can recognise your charming, allegorical figures," he said with a smile. There were thirty notes—he counted them twice, for they were moist and very sticky. There was another paper. "This must be—" He rose to his feet and held the paper up towards the moon. "I can't read the writing," he murmured, "but I can see the figures—30,000. Ah, and that is 'Genoa'! Now to whom is it payable, I wonder!"
"What the devil are you doing?" growled Paul, sitting up with a shiver.
"My friend, I have saved your life," observed the Captain, impressively.
"That's no reason for robbing me," was Paul's ungrateful but logically sound reply.
The Captain stooped and picked up the bundle of letters. Separating them one from another, he tore them into small fragments and scattered them over the stream. Paul watched him, sullen but without resistance. Dieppe turned to him.
"You have no possible claim against the Countess," he remarked; "no possible hold on her, Monsieur de Roustache."
Paul finished the flask for himself this time, shivered again, and swore pitifully. He was half-crying and cowed. "Curse the whole business!" he said. "But she had twenty thousand francs of my money."
The Captain addressed to him a question somewhat odd under the circumstances.
"On your honour as a gentleman, is that true?" he asked.
"Yes, it's true," said Paul, with a glare of suspicion. He was not in the mood to appreciate satire or banter; but the Captain appeared quite grave and his manner was courteous.