tion to touch on nothing unpleasant,
he could not help noticing Mimi's reserve, and remarking on it.

"You do not congratulate me," said he. "Perhaps you have not heard
the reason why I left your party in the woods. It was not because I
grew tired of your company. It was because I was attacked by an
assassin, and narrowly escaped with my life. It has only been by a
miracle that I have come here; and, though I still have something of
my strength, yet I am very far from being the man that I was when you
saw me last."

At these words Mimi took another look at Cazeneau, and surveyed him
somewhat more closely. She felt a slight shock at noticing now the
change which had taken place in him. He looked so haggard, and so
old!

She murmured a few words, which Cazeneau accepted as expressions of
good will, and thanked her accordingly. The conversation did not last
much longer. Cazeneau himself found it rather too tedious where he
had to do all the talking, and where the other was only a girl too
sad or too sullen to answer. One final remark was made, which seemed
to Mimi to express the whole purpose of his visit.

"You need not fear, mademoiselle," said he, "that this assassin will
escape. That is impossible, since he is under strict confinement, and
in a few days must be tried for his crimes."

What that meant Mimi knew only too well; and after Cazeneau left,
these words rang in her heart.

After his call on Mimi, Cazeneau was waited on by the ex-commandant,
who acquainted him with the result of certain inquiries which he had
been making. These inquiries had been made by means of a prisoner,
who had been put in with Claude in order to win the young man's
confidence, and thus get at his secret; for Cazeneau had been of the
opinion that there were accomplices or allies of Claude in France, of
whom it would be well to know the names. The ex-commandant was still
more eager to know. He had been very much struck by the claim of
Claude to be a De Montresor, and by Cazeneau's own confession that
the present _regime_ was unfavorable to him; and under these
circumstances the worthy functionary, who always looked out for
number one, was busy weighing the advantages of the party of Claude
as against the party of Cazeneau.

On the evening of the day when he had called on Mimi, Cazeneau was
waited on by Pere Michel. He himself had sent for the priest, whom he
had summoned somewhat abruptly. The priest entered the apartment,
and, wit