Mascarin secretly chuckled over the success of his plans thus announced by Paul.
“What did you say?” asked he.
“Nothing, sir; I was too horror-stricken; the man Loupins came up, and both he and his wife scowled at me threateningly. After a short pause, they asserted that they were perfectly sure that Rose and I had robbed M. Tantaine.”
“But did you not deny this monstrous charge?”
“I was utterly bewildered, for I saw that every circumstance was against me. The evening before, Rose, in reply to Madame Loupin’s importunities, had told her that she had no money, and did not know where to get any. But, as you perceive, on the very next day I appeared in a suit of new clothes, and was prepared to pay my debts, while Rose had left the house some hours before. Does not all this form a chain of strange coincidences? Rose changed the five hundred franc note that Tantaine had lent me at the shop of a grocer, named Melusin, and this suspicious fool was the first to raise a cry against us, and dared to assert that a detective had been ordered to watch us.”
Mascarin knew all this story better than Paul, but here he interrupted his young friend.
“I do not understand you,” said he, “nor whether your grief arises from indignation or remorse. Has there been a robbery?”
“How can I tell? I have never seen M. Tantaine from that day. There is a rumor that he has been plundered and important papers taken from him, and that he has consequently been arrested.”
“Why did you not explain the facts?”
“It would have been of no use. It would clearly prove that Tantaine was no friend of mine, not even an acquaintance, and they would have laughed me to scorn had I declared that the evening before he came into my room and made me a present of five hundred francs.”