picturing to myself her joy when I told
her of your kind promises to me. For more than an hour I remained in my
garret, overwhelmed with the terrible thought that I should never see
her again."

Mascarin watched Paul attentively, and came to the conclusion that his
words were too fine for his grief to be sincere.

"But what about the accusation of theft?"

"I am coming to that," returned the young man. "I then determined to
obey your injunctions and leave the Hotel de Perou, with which I was
more than ever disgusted. I went downstairs to settle with Madame
Loupins, when ah! hideous disgrace! As I handed her the two weeks' rent,
she asked me with a contemptuous sneer, where I had stolen the money
from?"

Mascarin secretly chuckled over the success of his plans thus announced
by Paul.

"What did you say?" asked he.

"Nothing, sir; I was too horror-stricken; the man Loupins came up, and
both he and his wife scowled at me threateningly. After a short pause,
they asserted that they were perfectly sure that Rose and I had robbed
M. Tantaine."

"But did you not deny this monstrous charge?"

"I was utterly bewildered, for I saw that every circumstance was against
me. The evening before, Rose, in reply to Madame Loupin's importunities,
had told her that she had no money, and did not know where to get any.
But, as you perceive, on the very next day I appeared in a suit of new
clothes, and was prepared to pay my debts, while Rose had left the
house some hours before. Does not all this form a chain of strange
coincidences? Rose changed the five hundred franc note that Tantaine had
lent me at the shop of a grocer, named Melusin, and this suspicious
fool was the first to raise a cry against us, and dared to assert that a
detective had been ordered to watch us."

Mascarin knew all this story better than Paul, but here he interrupted
his young friend.

"I do not understand you," said he, "nor whether your grief arises from
indignation or remorse. Has there been a robbery?"

"How can I tell? I have never seen M. Tantaine from that day. There is
a rumor that he has been plundered and important papers taken from him,
and that he has consequently been arrested."

"Why did you not explain the facts?"

"It would have been of no use. It would clearly prove that Tantaine was
no friend of mine, not even an acquaintance, and they would have laughed
me to scorn had I declared that the evening before he came into my room
and made