ound
the letter from the working jeweller. The letter gave me the address. A
bribe of a few louis enabled me to take the workman's place; and I
arrived with a wedding-ring ready cut and engraved. Hocus-pocus!
Pass!... The count couldn't make head or tail of it."

"Splendid!" I cried. And I added, a little chaffingly, in my turn, "But
don't you think that you were humbugged a bit yourself, on this
occasion?"

"Oh! And by whom, pray?"

"By the countess?"

"In what way?"

"Hang it all, that name engraved as a talisman!... The mysterious Adonis
who loved her and suffered for her sake!... All that story seems very
unlikely; and I wonder whether, Lupin though you be, you did not just
drop upon a pretty love-story, absolutely genuine and ... none too
innocent."

Lupin looked at me out of the corner of his eye:

"No," he said.

"How do you know?"

"If the countess made a misstatement in telling me that she knew that
man before her marriage--and that he was dead--and if she really did
love him in her secret heart, I, at least, have a positive proof that it
was an ideal love and that he did not suspect it."

"And where is the proof?"

"It is inscribed inside the ring which I myself broke on the countess's
finger ... and which I carry on me. Here it is. You can read the name
she had engraved on it."

He handed me the ring. I read:

"Horace Velmont."

There was a moment of silence between Lupin and myself; and, noticing
it, I also observed on his face a certain emotion, a tinge of
melancholy.

I resumed:

"What made you tell me this story ... to which you have often alluded in
my presence?"

"What made me ...?"

He drew my attention to a woman, still exceedingly handsome, who was
passing on a young man's arm. She saw Lupin and bowed.

"It's she," he whispered. "She and her son."

"Then she recognized you?"

"She always recognizes me, whatever my disguise."

"But since the burglary at the Chateau de Thibermesnil,[D] the police
have identified the two names of Arsene Lupin and Horace Velmont."

[D] _The Exploits of Arsene Lupin. IX. Holmlock Shears arrives too
late._

"Yes."

"Therefore she knows who you are."

"Yes."

"And she bows to you?" I exclaimed, in spite of myself.

He caught me by the arm and, fiercely:

"Do you think that I am Lupin to her? Do you think that I am a burglar
in her eyes, a rogue, a cheat?... Why, I might be the lowest of
miscreants, I might be a murderer ev