her passion, investing it with that inexplicable
attraction which, from the days of Eve, the thing forbidden possesses
for women. Mademoiselle Rogron's perturbation did not escape the
lynx-eyed lawyer.

One evening, after the game had ended, Vinet approached his dear friend
Sylvie, took her hand, and led her to a sofa.

"Something troubles you," he said.

She nodded sadly. The lawyer let the others depart; Rogron walked home
with the Chargeboeufs, and when Vinet was alone with the old maid he
wormed the truth out of her.

"Cleverly played, abbe!" thought he. "But you've played into my hands."

The foxy lawyer was more decided in his opinion than even the doctor.
He advised marriage in ten years. Inwardly he was vowing that the whole
Rogron fortune should go to Bathilde. He rubbed his hands, his pinched
lips closed more tightly as he hurried home. The influence exercised
by Monsieur Habert, physician of the soul, and by Vinet, doctor of the
purse, balanced each other perfectly. Rogron had no piety in him; so the
churchman and the man of law, the black-robed pair, were fairly matched.

On discovering the victory obtained by Celeste, in her anxiety to marry
Rogron herself, over Sylvie, torn between the fear of death and the joy
of being baronness and mayoress, the lawyer saw his chance of driving
the colonel from the battlefield. He knew Rogron well enough to be
certain he could marry him to Bathilde; Jerome had already succumbed
inwardly to her charms, and Vinet knew that the first time the pair were
alone together the marriage would be settled. Rogron had reached the
point of keeping his eyes fixed on Celeste, so much did he fear to look
at Bathilde. Vinet had now possessed himself of Sylvie's secrets, and
saw the force with which she loved the colonel. He fully understood the
struggle of such a passion in the heart of an old maid who was also in
the grasp of religious emotion, and he saw his way to rid himself of
Pierrette and the colonel both by making each the cause of the other's
overthrow.

The next day, after the court had risen, Vinet met the colonel and
Rogron talking a walk together, according to their daily custom.

Whenever the three men were seen in company the whole town talked of it.
This triumvirate, held in horror by the sub-prefect, the magistracy,
and the Tiphaine clique, was, on the other hand, a source of pride
and vanity to the Liberals of Provins. Vinet was sole editor of the
"Courrier" and