ticements to Madame
Delphine's banker. There is this to be said even for the pride his
grandfather had taught him, that it had always held him above low
indulgences; and though he had dallied with kings, queens, and knaves
through all the mazes of Faro, Rondeau, and Craps, he had done it
loftily; but now he maintained a peaceful estrangement from all.
Evariste and Jean, themselves, found him only by seeking.

"It is the right way," he said to Pere Jerome, the day we saw him there.
"Ursin Lemaitre is dead. I have buried him. He left a will. I am his
executor."

"He is crazy," said his lawyer brother-in-law, impatiently.

"On the contr-y," replied the little priest, "'e 'as come ad hisse'f."

Evariste spoke.

"Look at his face, Jean. Men with that kind of face are the last to go
crazy."

"You have not proved that," replied Jean, with an attorney's obstinacy.
"You should have heard him talk the other day about that newspaper
paragraph. 'I have taken Ursin Lemaitre's head; I have it with me; I
claim the reward, but I desire to commute it to citizenship.' He is
crazy."

Of course Jean Thompson did not believe what he said; but he said it,
and, in his vexation, repeated it, on the _banquettes_ and at the clubs;
and presently it took the shape of a sly rumor, that the returned rover
was a trifle snarled in his top-hamper.

This whisper was helped into circulation by many trivial eccentricities
of manner, and by the unaccountable oddness of some of his transactions
in business.

"My dear sir!" cried his astounded lawyer, one day, "you are not running
a charitable institution!"

"How do you know?" said Monsieur Vignevielle. There the conversation
ceased.

"Why do you not found hospitals and asylums at once," asked the
attorney, at another time, with a vexed laugh, "and get the credit of
it?"

"And make the end worse than the beginning," said the banker, with a
gentle smile, turning away to a desk of books.

"Bah!" muttered Jean Thompson.

Monsieur Vignevielle betrayed one very bad symptom. Wherever he went he
seemed looking for somebody. It may have been perceptible only to those
who were sufficiently interested in him to study his movements; but
those who saw it once saw it always. He never passed an open door or
gate but he glanced in; and often, where it stood but slightly ajar, you
might see him give it a gentle push with his hand or cane. It was very
singular.

He walked much alone after dark. The _gui