a deep draught of wine; and then he said only, "Indeed!" in a tone of
such indifference as might at another time have deceived me, but now was
patently assumed.

"Yes," I replied, affecting to be engaged with my plate: we were eating
nuts. "Doubtless you will be able to guess on what subject."

"I?" he said, as quick to answer as he had before been slow. "No, I
think not."

"La Fin," I said. "And his disclosures respecting M. de Biron's
friends."

"Ah!" he replied, shrugging his shoulders. He had contrived to regain
his composure, but I noticed that his hand shook, and I saw that he was
quite unable to chew the nut he had just put into his mouth. "They tell
me he accuses everybody," he continued, his eyes on his plate. "Even the
King is scarcely safe from him. But I have heard no particulars."

"They will be known by-and-by," I answered prudently. And after that I
did not think it wise to continue, lest I should give more than I got.
But as soon as he had finished, and we had washed our hands, I led him
to the closet looking on the river, where I was in the habit of working
with my secretaries. I sent them away and sat down with him to his
paper; but in the position in which I found myself, between suspicion
and perplexity, I gathered little or nothing from it; and had I found
another doing the King's service as negligently I had sent him about his
business. Nevertheless, I made some show of attention, and had reached
the schedule when something in the fairly written summary, which closed
the account, caught my eye. I bent more closely to it, and presently
making an occasion to carry the parchment into the next room, compared
it with the hand-writing on the scrap of paper I had found in the
snowball. A brief scrutiny proved that they were the work of the same
person!

I went back to M. Nicholas, and after attesting the accounts, and making
one or two notes, remarked in a careless way on the clearness of the
hand. "I am badly in need of a fourth secretary," I added. "Your scribe
might do for me."

It did not escape me that once again M. Nicholas looked uncomfortable.
His red face took a deeper tinge and his hand went nervously to his
pointed grey beard. "I do not think he would do for you," he muttered.

"What is his name?" I asked, purposely bending over the papers and
avoiding his eye.

"I have dismissed him," he rejoined curtly. "I do not know where he
could now be found."

"That is a pity. He writes we