when you would wish to sever our connection, and even give us up to
justice, if you could do so with safety to yourself. I therefore took my
precautions. One thing, however, I was not prepared for, and that was,
that a man of your intelligence should have played so paltry a game,
and even twelve months back thought of betraying us. It is almost
incredible. Do you ever read the _Gazette des Tribunaux_? I saw in its
pages yesterday a story nearly similar to your own. Shall I tell it to
you? A lawyer who concealed his vices beneath a mantle of joviality and
candor, brought up from the country a pretty, innocent girl to act as
servant in his house. This lawyer occupied his leisure time in leading
the poor child astray, and the moment at last came when the consequences
of her weakness were too apparent. The lawyer was half beside himself at
the approaching scandal. What would the neighbors say? Well, to cut the
story short, the infant was suppressed,--you understand, suppressed, and
the mother turned into the street."

"Baptiste, have mercy!"

"It was a most imprudent act, for such things always leak out somehow.
You have a gardener at your house at Champigny, and suppose the idea
seized upon this worthy man to dig up the ground round the wall at the
end of the garden."

"That is enough," said Catenac, piteously. "I give in."

Mascarin adjusted his spectacles, as he always did in important moments.

"You give in, do you? Not a bit. Even now you are endeavoring to find a
means of parrying my home thrusts."

"But I declare to you----"

"Do not be alarmed; dig as deeply as he might, your gardener would
discover nothing."

The lawyer uttered a stifled exclamation of rage as he perceived the pit
into which he had fallen.

"He would find nothing," resumed Mascarin, "and yet the story is all
true. Last January, on a bitterly cold night, you dug a hole, and in
it deposited the body of a new-born infant wrapped in a shawl. And what
shawl? Why the very one that you purchased at the _Bon Marche_, when you
were making yourself agreeable to Clarisse. The shopman who sold it to
you has identified it, and is ready to give evidence when called upon.
You may look for that shawl, Catenac, but you will not find it."

"Have you got that shawl?" asked Catenac hoarsely.

"Am I a fool?" asked Mascarin contemptuously. "Tantaine has it; but _I_
know where the body is, and will keep the information to myself. Do not
be alarmed; act fair