"You forced him—how splendid!" reiterated Crystal, whose glowing eyes were fixed upon Maurice with all the admiration which she felt.
"Yes! that money was in my pocket for the rest of the happy night, but the abominable thief knew well that his friend Victor de Marmont was on the road with five and twenty armed deserters in the pay of the Corsican brigand. Hardly had I left the hostelry and found my way back to the main road when I was surrounded, assailed, searched and robbed. I repeat!" continued St. Genis, warming to his own narrative, "what could I do alone against so many?—the thief and his hirelings I managed successfully, but with the money once in my possession I could not risk staying an hour longer than I could help in that den of cutthroats. But they were in league with de Marmont, and, though I would have guarded the King's money with my life, it was filched from me ere I could draw a single weapon in its defence."
He had sunk in a chair, half exhausted with the effort of his own eloquence, and now, with elbows resting on his knees and head buried in his hands, he looked the picture of heroic misery.
Crystal said nothing for a while; there was a deep frown of puzzlement between her eyes.
"Maurice," she said resolutely at last, "you said just now that the thief was in collusion with his friend de Marmont. What did you mean by that?"
"I would rather that you guessed what I meant, Crystal," replied Maurice without looking up at her.
"You mean . . . that . . ." she began slowly.
"That it was Mr. Clyffurde, our English friend," broke in Madame tartly, "who robbed us on the broad highway. I suspected it all along."
"You suspected it, ma tante, and said nothing?" asked the girl, who obviously had not taken in the full significance of Maurice's statement.
"I said absolutely nothing," replied Madame decisively, "firstly, because I did not think that I would be doing any good by putting my own surmises into my brother's head, and, secondly, because I must confess that I thought that nice young Englishman had acted pour le bon motif."