“Were written by the wretches who have robbed your father, yes, madam!” And, shaking his fist with a threatening air, he added,—
“Oh! there is no mistaking it. Since when does this journal exist? Since about six months ago. From the day on which it was established, it was the aim and purpose of the founders to publish in it the articles which you haven’t read.”
Even if she could not well understand by what ingenious combinations such enormous sums could be abstracted, Henrietta was conquered by Papa Ravinet’s sincere and earnest conviction.
“Then,” she went on, “these wretches who have robbed my father now mean to ruin him!”
“They must do it for their own safety. The money has been stolen, you see; therefore there must be a thief. For the world, for the courts, the guilty one will be Count Ville-Handry.”
“For the courts?”
“Alas, yes!”
The poor girl’s eyes went from the brother to the sister with a terrible expression of bewilderment. At last she asked,—
“And do you believe Sarah will allow my father’s name to be thus dishonored,—the name which she bears, and of which she was so proud?”
“She will, perhaps, even insist upon it.”