e by questioning Petit-Claud and feigning
stupidity; and at length he felt convinced that the Cointets were
the real movers behind Metivier; they were plotting to ruin Sechard's
printing establishment, and to lure him (Sechard) on to pay his son's
debts by holding out the discovery as a bait. The old man of the people
did not suspect that Petit-Claud was in the plot, nor had he any idea of
the toils woven to ensnare the great secret. A day came at last when he
grew angry and out of patience with the daughter-in-law who would not
so much as tell him where David was hiding; he determined to force the
laboratory door, for he had discovered that David was wont to make his
experiments in the workshop where the rollers were melted down.

He came downstairs very early one morning and set to work upon the lock.

"Hey! Papa Sechard, what are you doing there?" Marion called out. (She
had risen at daybreak to go to her papermill, and now she sprang across
to the workshop.)

"I am in my own house, am I not?" said the old man, in some confusion.

"Oh, indeed, are you turning thief in your old age? You are not drunk
this time either----I shall go straight to the mistress and tell her."

"Hold your tongue, Marion," said Sechard, drawing two crowns of six
francs each from his pocket. "There----"

"I will hold my tongue, but don't you do it again," said Marion, shaking
her finger at him, "or all Angouleme shall hear of it."

The old man had scarcely gone out, however, when Marion went up to her
mistress.

"Look, madame," she said, "I have had twelve francs out of your
father-in-law, and here they are----"

"How did you do it?"

"What was he wanting to do but to take a look at the master's pots and
pans and stuff, to find out the secret, forsooth. I knew quite well that
there was nothing in the little place, but I frightened him and talked
as if he were setting about robbing his son, and he gave me twelve
francs to say nothing about it."

Just at that moment Basine came in radiant, and with a letter for her
friend, a letter from David written on magnificent paper, which she
handed over when they were alone.

"MY ADORED EVE,--I am writing to you the first letter on my first
sheet of paper made by the new process. I have solved the problem
of sizing the pulp in the trough at last. A pound of pulp costs
five sous, even supposing that the raw material is grown on good
soil with special culture; three francs' worth o