med before papa had become aware of their temporary
disappearance. Madame would save the money out of the liberal
allowance she received from him for pin-money. Anything, anything was
preferable to this awful doom which hung over her head.

But even so M. le Marquis demurred. The thought of his proud and
fashionable Rachel going to the Mont de Piete to pawn her own jewels was
not to be thought of. She would be seen, recognized, and the scandal
would be as bad and worse than anything that loomed on the black horizon
of her fate at this hour.

What was to be done? What was to be done?

Then M. le Marquis had a brilliant idea. He knew of a man, a very
reliable, trustworthy man, attorney-at-law by profession, and
therefore a man of repute, who was often obliged in the exercise of
his profession to don various disguises when tracking criminals in the
outlying quarters of Paris. M. le Marquis, putting all pride and
dignity nobly aside in the interests of his adored Rachel, would
borrow one of these disguises and himself go to the Mont de Piete with
the emeralds, obtain the five hundred thousand francs, and remit them
to the man whom he hated most in all the world, in exchange for the
aforementioned guarantee.

Madame la Marquise, overcome with gratitude, threw herself, in the
midst of a flood of tears, into the arms of the man whom she no longer
dared to call her husband, and so the matter was settled for the
moment. M. le Marquis undertook to have the deed of guarantee drafted
by the same notary of repute whom he knew, and, if Madame approved of
it, the emeralds would then be converted into money, and the interview
with M. le Comte de Naquet fixed for Wednesday, October 10th, at some
convenient place, subsequently to be determined on--in all
probability at the bureau of that same ubiquitous attorney-at-law, M.
Hector Ratichon, at 96 Rue Daunon.

All was going on excellently well, as you observe. I duly drafted the
deed, and M. de Firmin-Latour showed it to Madame for her approval. It
was so simply and so comprehensively worded that she expressed herself
thoroughly satisfied with it, whereupon M. le Marquis asked her to
write to her shameful persecutor in order to fix the date and hour for
the exchange of the money against the deed duly signed and witnessed.
M. le Marquis had always been the intermediary for her letters, you
understand, and for the small sums of money which she had sent from
time to time to the factitio