would
have been left without the power to take his revenge; a revenge at cards
often exceeds the amount of all preceding losses. But these burning
expectations depended on the marquis's reply.

"Wait, my dear fellow," said Montefiore, "and we will go together to
Bordeaux. In all conscience, I am rich enough to-day not to wish to take
the money of an old comrade."

Three days later Diard and Montefiore were in Bordeaux at a gambling
table. Diard, having won enough to pay his hundred thousand francs, went
on until he had lost two hundred thousand more on his word. He was gay
as a man who swam in gold. Eleven o'clock sounded; the night was superb.
Montefiore may have felt, like Diard, a desire to breathe the open air
and recover from such emotions in a walk. The latter proposed to the
marquis to come home with him to take a cup of tea and get his money.

"But Madame Diard?" said Montefiore.

"Bah!" exclaimed the husband.

They went down-stairs; but before taking his hat Diard entered the
dining-room of the establishment and asked for a glass of water. While
it was being brought, he walked up and down the room, and was able,
without being noticed, to pick up one of those small sharp-pointed steel
knives with pearl handles which are used for cutting fruit at dessert.

"Where do you live?" said Montefiore, in the courtyard, "for I want to
send a carriage there to fetch me."

Diard told him the exact address.

"You see," said Montefiore, in a low voice, taking Diard's arm, "that as
long as I am with you I have nothing to fear; but if I came home alone
and a scoundrel were to follow me, I should be profitable to kill."

"Have you much with you?"

"No, not much," said the wary Italian, "only my winnings. But they would
make a pretty fortune for a beggar and turn him into an honest man for
the rest of his life."

Diard led the marquis along a lonely street where he remembered to have
seen a house, the door of which was at the end of an avenue of trees
with high and gloomy walls on either side of it. When they reached this
spot he coolly invited the marquis to precede him; but as if the latter
understood him he preferred to keep at his side. Then, no sooner were
they fairly in the avenue, then Diard, with the agility of a tiger,
tripped up the marquis with a kick behind the knees, and putting a foot
on his neck stabbed him again and again to the heart till the blade of
the knife broke in it. Then he searched Montefior