nerous incredulity failed him for
this once; a child must have perceived that the Hermitage had completed
what the absinthe had begun. If this were the first day, what would be
the last? 'If necessary, wreck the train,' thought he, remembering the
Doctor's parable. He looked round on the delightful scene; he drank deep
of the charmed night air, laden with the scent of hay. 'If necessary,
wreck the train,' he repeated. And he rose and returned to the house.

CHAPTER VI. A CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION, IN TWO PARTS.

The next morning there was a most unusual outcry, in the Doctor's house.
The last thing before going to bed, the Doctor had locked up some
valuables in the dining-room cupboard; and behold, when he rose again, as
he did about four o'clock, the cupboard had been broken open, and the
valuables in question had disappeared. Madame and Jean-Marie were
summoned from their rooms, and appeared in hasty toilets; they found the
Doctor raving, calling the heavens to witness and avenge his injury,
pacing the room bare-footed, with the tails of his night-shirt flirting
as he turned.

'Gone!' he said; 'the things are gone, the fortune gone! We are paupers
once more. Boy! what do you know of this? Speak up, sir, speak up. Do
you know of it? Where are they?' He had him by the arm, shaking him
like a bag, and the boy's words, if he had any, were jolted forth in
inarticulate murmurs. The Doctor, with a revulsion from his own
violence, set him down again. He observed Anastasie in tears.
'Anastasie,' he said, in quite an altered voice, 'compose yourself,
command your feelings. I would not have you give way to passion like the
vulgar. This--this trifling accident must be lived down. Jean-Marie,
bring me my smaller medicine chest. A gentle laxative is indicated.'

And he dosed the family all round, leading the way himself with a double
quantity. The wretched Anastasie, who had never been ill in the whole
course of her existence, and whose soul recoiled from remedies, wept
floods of tears as she sipped, and shuddered, and protested, and then was
bullied and shouted at until she sipped again. As for Jean-Marie, he
took his portion down with stoicism.

'I have given him a less amount,' observed the Doctor, 'his youth
protecting him against emotion. And now that we have thus parried any
morbid consequences, let us reason.'

'I am so cold,' wailed Anastasie.

'Cold!' cried the Doctor. 'I give thanks to God