me to an end."

Berselius, in a few words, told how the camp had been broken up, without
referring, however, to his accident; and the fat and placid Cambon
listened, pleased as a child with the tale. He had never seen an elephant
except at the Jardin d'Acclimatation. He would have run from a milch-cow.
Terrible in the law courts, in life he was the mildest of creatures, and
the tale had all the attraction that the strong has for the weak and the
ferocious for the mild.

But even as he listened, sitting there in his armchair, he was examining
his visitor with minute attention, trying to discover some clue to the
meaning of the change in him.

"And now," said Berselius, when he had finished, "to business."

He had several matters to consult the lawyer about, and the most important
was the shifting of his money from the securities in which they were
placed.

Cambon, who was a large holder of rubber industries, grew pale beneath his
natural pallor when he discovered that Berselius was about to place his
entire fortune elsewhere.

Instantly he put two and two together. Berselius's quick return, his
changed appearance, the fact that suddenly and at one sweep he was selling
his stock. All these pointed to one fact--disaster.

The elephant story was all a lie, so resolved Cambon, and, no sooner had
he bowed his visitor out, than he rushed to the telephone, rang up his
broker, and ordered him to sell out his rubber stock at any price.

Berselius, when he left the lawyer's house, drove to his club. The selling
of his rubber industry shares had been prompted by no feeling of
compunction; it was an act entirely dictated by the profound irritation he
felt against the other one who had made his fortune out of those same
rubber industries.

He wished to break every bond between himself and the infernal entity that
dominated him by night. Surely it was enough to be that other one at
night, without being perpetually haunted by that other one's traces by
day.

In the Place de L'Opera, his _fiacre_ paused in a crowd of vehicles.
Berselius heard himself hailed. He turned his head. In a barouche drawn up
beside his carriage, was seated a young and pretty woman. It was Sophia
Melmotte, a flame from his past life, burning now for a space in the life
of a Russian prince.

"_Ma foi_," said Sophia, as her carriage pushed up till it was quite level
with Berselius. "So you are back from--where was it you went to? And how
are the tige