of the house; and that M. de Cocheforet,
when I saw him at the inn, was on his way to convey them out of the
country; either to secure them from seizure by the Government, or to
raise money by selling them--money to be spent in some last desperate
enterprise. For a day or two, perhaps, after leaving Cocheforet, while
the mountain road and its chances occupied his thoughts, he had not
discovered his loss. Then he had searched for the precious sachet,
missed it, and returned hot-foot on his tracks.

The longer I considered the circumstances the more certain I was that
I had hit on the true solution; and all that night I sat wakeful in the
darkness, pondering what I should do. The stones, unset as they were,
could never be identified, never be claimed. The channel by which they
had come to my hands could never be traced. To all intents they were
mine; mine, to do with as I pleased! Fifteen thousand crowns, perhaps
twenty thousand crowns, and I to leave at six in the morning, whether I
would or no! I might leave for Spain with the jewels in my pocket. Why
not?

I confess I was tempted. And indeed the gems were so fine that I doubt
not some indifferently honest men would have sold salvation for them.
But--a Berault his honour? No. I was tempted, I say; but not for long.
Thank God, a man may be reduced to living by the fortunes of the dice,
and may even be called by a woman 'spy' and 'coward,' without becoming a
thief! The temptation soon left me--I take credit for it--and I fell to
thinking of this and that plan for making use of them. Once it occurred
to me to take the jewels to the Cardinal and buy my pardon with them;
again, to use them as a trap to capture Cocheforet; again, to--and then,
about five in the morning, as I sat up on my wretched pallet, while the
first light stole slowly in through the cobwebbed, hay-stuffed lattice,
there came to me the real plan, the plan of plans, on which I acted.

It charmed me I smacked my lips over it, and hugged myself, and felt my
eyes dilate in the darkness, as I conned it. It seemed cruel, it seemed
mean; I cared nothing. Mademoiselle had boasted of her victory over me,
of her woman's wits and her acuteness and of my dullness. She had said
that her grooms should flog me. She had rated me as if I had been a dog.
Very well; we would see now whose brains were the better, whose was the
master mind, whose should be the whipping.

The one thing required by my plan was that I should g