le
town like this, where everybody's eyes are everywhere, and all things
are guessed and all things are known, you can long hide a stolen
fortune? Come, my son, an innocent man wouldn't have let me talk so
long."

"Go to the devil!" cried Minoret. "I don't know what you _all_ mean by
persecuting me. I prefer these stones--they leave me in peace."

"Farewell, then; I have warned you. Neither the poor girl nor I have
said a single word about this to any living person. But take care--there
is a man who has his eye upon you. May God have pity upon you!"

The abbe departed; presently he turned back to look at Minoret. The
man was holding his head in his hands as if it troubled him; he was,
in fact, partly crazy. In the first place, he had kept the three
certificates because he did not know what to do with them. He dared not
draw the money himself for fear it should be noticed; he did not wish
to sell them, and was still trying to find some way of transferring the
certificates. In this horrible state of uncertainty he bethought him of
acknowledging all to his wife and getting her advice. Zelie, who always
managed affairs for him so well, she could get him out of his troubles.
The three-per-cent Funds were now selling at eighty. Restitution! why,
that meant, with arrearages, giving up a million! Give up a million,
when there was no one who could know that he had taken it--!

So Minoret continued through September and a part of October irresolute
and a prey to his torturing thoughts. To the great surprise of the
little town he grew thin and haggard.

CHAPTER XX. REMORSE

An alarming circumstance hastened the confession which Minoret was
inclined to make to Zelie; the sword of Damocles began to move above
their heads. Towards the middle of October Monsieur and Madame Minoret
received from their son Desire the following letter:--

My dear Mother,--If I have not been to see you since vacation, it
is partly because I have been on duty during the absence of my
chief, but also because I knew that Monsieur de Portenduere was
waiting my arrival at Nemours, to pick a quarrel with me. Tired,
perhaps, of seeing his vengeance on our family delayed, the
viscount came to Fontainebleau, where he had appointed one of his
Parisian friends to meet him, having already obtained the help of
the Vicomte de Soulanges commanding the troop of cavalry here in
garrison.

He called upon me, very politely, accompanied by