enough esteem and confidence in
you to deprive you of the right to arm yourself against me with the
sad secret which you have surprised."

M. Lecoq, despite his cool-headedness, was disconcerted.

"Yes," pursued M. Plantat, "your astonishing genius for penetrating
dramas like this has led you to the truth. But you do not know all,
and even now I would hold my tongue, had not the reasons which
compelled me to be silent ceased to exist."

He opened a secret drawer in an old oaken desk near the fireplace
and took out a large paper package, which he laid on the table.

"For four years," he resumed, "I have followed, day by day--I might
say, hour by hour--the various phases of the dreadful drama which
ended in blood last night at Valfeuillu. At first, the curiosity
of an old retired attorney prompted me. Later, I hoped to save the
life and honor of one very dear to me. Why did I say nothing of my
discoveries? That, my friends, is the secret of my conscience--it
does not reproach me. Besides, I shut my eyes to the evidence even
up to yesterday; I needed the brutal testimony of this deed!"

Day had come. The frightened blackbirds flew whistling by. The
pavement resounded with the wooden shoes of the workmen going
fieldward. No noise troubled the sad stillness of the library,
unless it were the rustling of the leaves which M. Plantat was
turning over, or now and then a groan from Robelot.

"Before commencing," said the old man, "I ought to consider your
weariness; we have been up twenty-four hours--"

But the others protested that they did not need repose. The fever
of curiosity had chased away their exhaustion. They were at last
to know the key of the mystery.

"Very well," said their host, "listen to me."

XII

The Count Hector de Tremorel, at twenty-six, was the model and
ideal of the polished man of the world, proper to our age; a man
useless alike to himself and to others, harmful even, seeming to
have been placed on earth expressly to play at the expense of all.
Young, noble, elegant, rich by millions, endowed with vigorous
health, this last descendant of a great family squandered most
foolishly and ignobly both his youth and his patrimony. He acquired
by excesses of all kinds a wide and unenviable celebrity. People
talked of his stables, his carriages, his servants, his furniture,
his dogs, his favorite loves. His cast-off horses still took
prizes, and a jade distinguished