'I have heard of that circumstance,' said Dufour. And then, as Bertrand did not, or could not speak, he added: 'You had better, perhaps, mademoiselle, send for Monsieur Derville.'

This proposition elicited a wild, desperate cry from the bewildered young man, who rushed distractedly out of the banking-house, and hastened with frantic speed towards the Rue St Antoine—for the moment unpursued.

Half an hour afterwards, Dufour and a bank-clerk arrived at Mademoiselle de la Tour's. They found Bertrand and Marie together, and both in a state of high nervous excitement. 'Monsieur Derville,' said the clerk, 'is now at the bank; and Monsieur Blaise requests your presence there, so that whatever misapprehension exists may be cleared up without the intervention of the agents of the public force.'

'And pray, monsieur,' said Marie, in a much firmer tone than, from her pale aspect, one would have expected, 'what does Monsieur Derville himself say of this strange affair?'

'That the note in question, mademoiselle, must have been stolen from his desk last evening. He was absent from home from half-past seven till ten, and unfortunately left the key in the lock.'

'I was sure he would say so,' gasped Bertrand. 'He is a demon, and I am lost.'

A bright, almost disdainful expression shone in Marie's fine eyes. 'Go with these gentlemen, Hector,' she said; 'I will follow almost immediately; and remember'—— What else she said was delivered in a quick, low whisper; and the only words she permitted to be heard were: 'Pas un mot, si tu m'aime' (Not a word, if thou lovest me).

Bertrand found Messieurs Derville, Blaise, and Mangier in a private room; and he remarked, with a nervous shudder, that two gendarmes were stationed in the passage. Derville, though very pale, sustained Bertrand's glance of rage and astonishment without flinching. It was plain that he had steeled himself to carry through the diabolical device his revenge had planned, and the fluttering hope with which Marie had inspired Bertrand died within him. Derville repeated slowly and firmly what the clerk had previously stated; adding, that no one save Bertrand, Jeanne Favart, and the clerk whom he first suspected, had been in the room after he left it. The note now produced was the one that had been stolen, and was safe in his desk at half-past seven the previous evening. M. Mangier said: 'The assertion of Bertrand, that I advanced him this note, or any other, is entirely false.'

'What have you to say in reply to these grave suspicions?' said M. Blaise. 'Your father was an honest man; and you, I hear, have hitherto borne an irreproachable character,' he added, on finding that the accused did not speak. 'Explain to us, then, how you came into possession of this note; if you do not, and satisfactorily—though, after what we have heard, that seems scarcely possible—we have no alternative but to give you into custody.'

'I have nothing to say at present—nothing,' muttered Bertrand, whose impatient furtive looks were every instant turned towards the door.