d evidence which will sooner or later become
convincing proof. I have heretofore only made deductions more or less
probable; I now possess knowledge which proves that I was not mistaken.
I walked in darkness: now I have a light to guide me."

As Prosper listened to M. Verduret's reassuring words, he felt hope
arising in his breast.

"Now," said M. Verduret, "we must take advantage of this evidence,
gained by the imprudence of our enemies, without delay. We will begin
with the porter."

He opened the door and called out:

"I say, my good man, step here a moment."

The porter entered, looking very much surprised at the authority
exercised over his lodger by this stranger.

"Who gave you this letter?" said M. Verduret.

"A messenger, who said he was paid for bringing it."

"Do you know him?"

"I know him well; he is the errand-runner who keeps his cart at the
corner of the Rue Pigalle."

"Go and bring him here."

After the porter had gone, M. Verduret drew from his pocket his diary,
and compared a page of it with the notes which he had spread over the
table.

"These notes were not sent by the thief," he said, after an attentive
examination of them.

"Do you think so, monsieur?"

"I am certain of it; that is, unless the thief is endowed with
extraordinary penetration and forethought. One thing is certain: these
ten thousand francs are not part of the three hundred and fifty thousand
which were stolen from the safe."

"Yet," said Prosper, who could not account for this certainty on the
part of his protector, "yet----"

"There is no doubt about it: I have the numbers of all the stolen
notes."

"What! When even I did not have them?"

"But the bank did, fortunately. When we undertake an affair we must
anticipate everything, and forget nothing. It is a poor excuse for a
man to say, 'I did not think of it' when he commits some oversight. I
thought of the bank."

If, in the beginning, Prosper had felt some repugnance about confiding
in his father's friend, the feeling had now disappeared.

He understood that alone, scarcely master of himself, governed only
by the inspirations of inexperience, never would he have the patient
perspicacity of this singular man.

Verduret continued talking to himself, as if he had absolutely forgotten
Prosper's presence:

"Then, as this package did not come from the thief, it can only come
from the other person, who was near the safe at the time of the robbery,
but coul