ty for Madame Fromont
and considered her husband's conduct altogether outrageous; as for
Sigismond, he could find no words bitter enough for the unknown trollop
who sent bills for six-thousand-franc shawls to be paid from his
cashbox. In his eyes, the honor and fair fame of the old house he had
served since his youth were at stake.

"What will become of us?" he repeated again and again. "Oh! these
women--"

One day Mademoiselle Planus sat by the fire with her knitting, waiting
for her brother.

The table had been laid for half an hour, and the old lady was beginning
to be worried by such unheard-of tardiness, when Sigismond entered with
a most distressed face, and without a word, which was contrary to all
his habits.

He waited until the door was shut tight, then said in a low voice, in
response to his sister's disturbed and questioning expression:

"I have some news. I know who the woman is who is doing her best to ruin
us."

Lowering his voice still more, after glancing about at the silent
walls of their little dining-room, he uttered a name so unexpected that
Mademoiselle Planus made him repeat it.

"Is it possible?"

"It is the truth."

And, despite his grief, he had almost a triumphant air.

His old sister could not believe it. Such a refined, polite person, who
had received her with so much cordiality!--How could any one imagine
such a thing?

"I have proofs," said Sigismond Planus.

Thereupon he told her how Pere Achille had met Sidonie and Georges
one night at eleven o'clock, just as they entered a small furnished
lodging-house in the Montmartre quarter; and he was a man who never
lied. They had known him for a long while. Besides, others had met them.
Nothing else was talked about at the factory. Risler alone suspected
nothing.

"But it is your duty to tell him," declared Mademoiselle Planus.

The cashier's face assumed a grave expression.

"It is a very delicate matter. In the first place, who knows whether
he would believe me? There are blind men so blind that--And then, by
interfering between the two partners, I risk the loss of my place. Oh!
the women--the women! When I think how happy Risler might have been.
When I sent for him to come to Paris with his brother, he hadn't a sou;
and to-day he is at the head of one of the first houses in Paris. Do
you suppose that he would be content with that? Oh! no, of course not!
Monsieur must marry. As if any one needed to marry! And, worse yet, he