er's examination had been a mere formality, the stating and proving
a fact. Now it related to collecting the attendant circumstances and
the most trifling particulars, so as to group them together, and reach a
just conclusion.

"Let us proceed in order," said the judge, "and pray confine yourself
to answering my questions. Did you ever suspect your cashier of being
dishonest?"

"Certainly not. Yet there were reasons which should have made me
hesitate to trust him with my funds."

"What reasons?"

"M. Bertomy played cards. I have known of his spending whole nights at
the gaming table, and losing immense sums of money. He was intimate with
an unprincipled set. Once he was mixed up with one of my clients, M. de
Clameran, in a scandalous gambling affair which took place at the house
of some disreputable woman, and wound up by being tried before the
police court."

For some minutes the banker continued to revile Prosper.

"You must confess, monsieur," interrupted the judge, "that you were very
imprudent, if not culpable, to have intrusted your safe to such a man."

"Ah, monsieur, Prosper was not always thus. Until the past year he was
a model of goodness. He lived in my house as one of my family; he spent
all of his evenings with us, and was the bosom friend of my eldest son
Lucien. One day, he suddenly left us, and never came to the house again.
Yet I had every reason to believe him attached to my niece Madeleine."

M. Patrigent had a peculiar manner of contracting his brows when he
thought he had discovered some new proof. He now did this, and said:

"Might not this admiration for the young lady have been the cause of M.
Bertomy's estrangement?"

"How so?" said the banker with surprise. "I was willing to bestow
Madeleine upon him, and, to be frank, was astonished that he did not ask
for her hand. My niece would be a good match for any man, and he should
have considered himself fortunate to obtain her. She is beautiful, and
her dowry will be half a million."

"Then you can see no motive for your cashier's conduct?"

"It is impossible for me to account for it. I have, however, always
supposed that Prosper was led astray by a young man whom he met at my
house about this time, M. Raoul de Lagors."

"Ah! and who is this young man?"

"A relative of my wife; a very attractive, intelligent young man,
somewhat wild, but rich enough to pay for his follies."

The judge wrote the name Lagors at the bottom of an alrea