in scored his back to efface the fatal letters, and altered his
complexion by the use of chemicals. Thus metamorphosing himself face
to face with the corpse, he contrived to achieve some likeness to his
Sosia. And to complete a change almost as marvelous as that related in
the Arabian tale, where a dervish has acquired the power, old as he is,
of entering into a young body, by a magic spell, the convict, who spoke
Spanish, learned as much Latin as an Andalusian priest need know.

As banker to three hulks, Collin was rich in the cash intrusted to his
known, and indeed enforced, honesty. Among such company a mistake is
paid for by a dagger thrust. To this capital he now added the money
given by the bishop to Don Carlos Herrera. Then, before leaving Spain,
he was able to possess himself of the treasure of an old bigot at
Barcelona, to whom he gave absolution, promising that he would make
restitution of the money constituting her fortune, which his penitent
had stolen by means of murder.

Jacques Collin, now a priest, and charged with a secret mission which
would secure him the most brilliant introductions in Paris, determined
to do nothing that might compromise the character he had assumed, and
had given himself up to the chances of his new life, when he met Lucien
on the road between Angouleme and Paris. In this youth the sham priest
saw a wonderful instrument for power; he saved him from suicide saying:

"Give yourself over to me as to a man of God, as men give themselves
over to the devil, and you will have every chance of a new career. You
will live as in a dream, and the worst awakening that can come to you
will be death, which you now wish to meet."

The alliance between these two beings, who were to become one, as
it were, was based on this substantial reasoning, and Carlos Herrera
cemented it by an ingeniously plotted complicity. He had the very genius
of corruption, and undermined Lucien's honesty by plunging him into
cruel necessity, and extricating him by obtaining his tacit consent to
bad or disgraceful actions, which nevertheless left him pure, loyal, and
noble in the eyes of the world. Lucien was the social magnificence under
whose shadow the forger meant to live.

"I am the author, you are the play; if you fail, it is I who shall be
hissed," said he on the day when he confessed his sacrilegious disguise.

Carlos prudently confessed only a little at a time, measuring the
horrors of his revelations by Luc