lf.
I will not let you starve, the first day of your arrival. I will make
amends by giving you some splendid old Cape wine."

He pulled the bell, and ordered the servant to hasten dinner, adding
that it must be an excellent one; and within an hour the two brothers
were seated at a sumptuous repast.

Gaston kept up an uninterrupted stream of questions. He wished to know
all that had happened during his absence.

"What about Clameran?" he abruptly asked.

Louis hesitated a moment. Should he tell the truth, or not?

"I have sold Clameran," he finally said.

"The chateau too?"

"Yes."

"You acted as you thought best," said Gaston sadly; "but it seems to me
that, if I had been in your place, I should have kept the old homestead.
Our ancestors lived there for many generations, and our father lies
buried there."

Then seeing Louis appear sad and distressed, he quickly added:

"However, it is just as well; it is in the heart that memory dwells, and
not in a pile of old stones. I myself had not the courage to return to
Provence. I could not trust myself to go to Clameran, where I would have
to look into the park of La Verberie. Alas, the only happy moments of my
life were spent there!"

Louis's countenance immediately cleared. The certainty that Gaston had
not been to Provence relieved his mind of an immense weight.

The next day Louis telegraphed to Raoul:

"Wisdom and prudence. Follow my directions. All goes well. Be sanguine."

All was going well; and yet Louis, in spite of his skilfully applied
questions, had obtained none of the information which he had come to
obtain.

Gaston was communicative on every subject except the one in which Louis
was interested. Was this silence premeditated, or simply unconscious?
Louis, like all villains, was ever ready to attribute to others the bad
motives by which he himself would be influenced.

Anything was better than this uncertainty; he determined to ask his
brother plainly what his intentions were in regard to money matters.

He thought the dinner-table a favorable opportunity, and began by
saying:

"Do you know, my dear Gaston, that thus far we have discussed every
topic except the most important one?"

"Why do you look so solemn, Louis? What is the grave subject of which
you speak?"

"Our father's estate. Supposing you to be dead, I inherited, and have
disposed of it."

"Is that what you call a serious matter?" said Gaston with an amused
smile.

"It cer