“Visitors, sir. This is M. Favoral.”

“The son of the cashier of the Mutual Credit?”

“Exactly; and this gentleman is the Marquis de Tregars.”

“You should have opened the door when you heard a knocking in the name of the law,” grumbled the commissary.

But he did not insist. Taking a paper from his pocket, he opened it, and, handing it to M. Saint Pavin,

“I have orders to arrest you,” he said. “Here is the warrant.”

With a careless gesture, the other pushed it back. “What’s the use of reading?” he said. “When I heard of the arrest of that poor Jottras, I guessed at once what was in store for me. It is about the Mutual Credit swindle, I imagine.”

“Exactly.”

“I have no more to do with it than yourself, sir; and I shall have very little trouble in proving it. But that is not your business. And you are going, I suppose, to put the seals on my papers?”

“Except on those that you have burnt.”