replying, but once more controlled her feelings.

That day Don Luis was on his guard. He lunched and dined out and arranged
with Mazeroux to have the Place du Palais-Bourbon watched.

Mlle. Levasseur did not leave the house during the afternoon. In the
evening Don Luis ordered Mazeroux's men to follow any one who might go
out at that time.

At ten o'clock the sergeant joined Don Luis in Hippolyte Fauville's
workroom. Deputy Chief Detective Weber and two plain-clothesmen
were with him.

Don Luis took Mazeroux aside:

"They distrust me. Own up to it."

"No. As long as M. Desmalions is there, they can do nothing against you.
Only, M. Weber maintains--and he is not the only one--that you fake up
all these occurrences yourself."

"With what object?"

"With the object of furnishing proof against Marie Fauville and getting
her condemned. So I asked for the attendance of the deputy chief and two
men. There will be four of us to bear witness to your honesty."

They all took up their posts. Two detectives were to sit up in turns.

This time, after making a minute search of the little room in which
Fauville's son used to sleep, they locked and bolted the doors and
shutters. At eleven o'clock they switched off the electric chandelier.

Don Luis and Weber hardly slept at all.

The night passed without incident of any kind.

But, at seven o'clock, when the shutters were opened, they saw that there
was a letter on the table. Just as on the last occasion, there was a
letter on the table!

When the first moment of stupefaction was over, the deputy chief took
the letter. His orders were not to read it and not to let any one
else read it.

Here is the letter, published by the newspapers, which also published the
declarations of the experts certifying that the handwriting was Hippolyte
Fauville's:

"I have seen him! You understand, don't you, my dear friend? I have seen
him! He was walking along a path in the Bois, with his coat collar turned
up and his hat pulled over his ears. I don't think that he saw me. It was
almost dark. But I knew him at once. I knew the silver handle of his
ebony stick. It was he beyond a doubt, the scoundrel!

"So he is in Paris, in spite of his promise. Gaston Sauverand is in
Paris! Do you understand the terrible significance of that fact? If he is
in Paris, it means that he intends to act. If he is in Paris, it means
certain death to me. Oh, the harm which I shall have suffered at that
ma