So, drawing himself up to his full height, and twirling his mustache in what he no doubt considered a very stylish fashion, he said:
"I have no power to continue the search any further at present. I must receive instructions from the sous-préfet, and before these can be given it is necessary that you should make a deposition."
Poor Nadine got bewildered. She was not familiar with the words used by the gendarme, and did not understand what that implied. If he had said, "You must deposit some money," she would have understood it at once, but "you must make a deposition"—what could that be?
Just then she remembered the envelope that kind Madame Pradère had given her with the injunction that she was not to open it until some time when she was in great difficulties. Surely that time had come. She could hardly be in a more trying situation than she was with her darling sister vanished, her money stolen, and this heartless gendarme insisting that she must go before the authorities, and make a deposition:
Slipping her hand into her bosom she drew out the precious envelope. It had not been stolen because she never parted with it.
"See, Cæsar," she said softly to her brother. "This is what good Madame Pradère gave me when I bade her 'Good-bye.' She said I wasn't to open it until I was in great trouble. Hadn't I better open it now?"
"Certainly," responded Cæsar. "This is indeed the time. I wonder what it can contain?"
His curiosity was soon changed to amazement, and then to joy, for when Nadine broke the seal, and opened the envelope, there were two bank-notes of a hundred francs each!
"Whew!" he exclaimed. "Isn't that fine? Why, that's a lot of money. Nearly one-half of what we have lost."
Nadine's sad face brightened at the sight of the bank-notes. They might get them out of all their difficulties, and help them to find Lydia. Holding them in her hands she said to the gendarme: