thing you please--I don't care. But you must leave me
in peace--I want peace."

"How can I trouble it now?"

Lupin seized his hand violently:

"You know quite well! Don't pretend not to know. You are at this moment
in possession of a secret to which I attach the highest importance.
This secret you were free to guess, but you have no right to give it to
the public."

"Are you sure that I know it?"

"You know it, I am certain: day by day, hour by hour, I have followed
your train of thought and the progress of your investigations. At the
very moment when Bredoux struck you, you were about to tell all.
Subsequently, you delayed your revelations, out of solicitude for your
father. But they are now promised to this paper here. The article is
written. It will be set up in an hour. It will appear to-morrow."

"Quite right."

Lupin rose, and slashing the air with his hand,

"It shall not appear!" he cried.

"It shall appear!" said Beautrelet, starting up in his turn.

At last, the two men were standing up to each other. I received the
impression of a shock, as if they had seized each other round the body.
Beautrelet seemed to burn with a sudden energy. It was as though a
spark had kindled within him a group of new emotions: pluck,
self-respect, the passion of fighting, the intoxication of danger. As
for Lupin, I read in the radiance of his glance the joy of the duellist
who at length encounters the sword of his hated rival.

"Is the article in the printer's hands?"

"Not yet."

"Have you it there--on you?"

"No fear! I shouldn't have it by now, in that case!"

"Then--"

"One of the assistant editors has it, in a sealed envelope. If I am not
at the office by midnight, he will have set it up."

"Oh, the scoundrel!" muttered Lupin. "He has provided for everything!"

His anger was increasing, visibly and frightfully. Beautrelet chuckled,
jeering in his turn, carried away by his success.

"Stop that, you brat!" roared Lupin. "You're forgetting who I am--and
that, if I wished--upon my word, he's daring to laugh!"

A great silence fell between them. Then Lupin stepped forward and, in
muttered tones, with his eyes on Beautrelet's:

"You shall go straight to the Grand Journal."

"No."

"Tear up your article."

"No."

"See the editor."

"No."

"Tell him you made a mistake."

"No."

"And write him another article, in which you will give the official
version of the Ambrumesy mystery, the one which ev