to her to submit
herself to my authority, that she will not do so."

"--And who afterwards writes," said the notary, moving his large snuff-
box to look among the papers underneath it for the letter, "that he is
coming to confer with me."

"Indeed?" replied Obenreizer, rather checked. "Well, sir. Have I no
legal rights?"

"Assuredly, my poor boy," returned the notary. "All but felons have
their legal rights."

"And who calls me felon?" said Obenreizer, fiercely.

"No one. Be calm under your wrongs. If the House of Defresnier would
call you felon, indeed, we should know how to deal with them."

While saying these words, he had handed Bintrey's very short letter to
Obenreizer, who now read it and gave it back.

"In saying," observed Obenreizer, with recovered composure, "that he is
coming to confer with you, this English lawyer means that he is coming to
deny my authority over my ward."

"You think so?"

"I am sure of it. I know him. He is obstinate and contentious. You
will tell me, my dear sir, whether my authority is unassailable, until my
ward is of age?"

"Absolutely unassailable."

"I will enforce it. I will make her submit herself to it. For," said
Obenreizer, changing his angry tone to one of grateful submission, "I owe
it to you, sir; to you, who have so confidingly taken an injured man
under your protection, and into your employment."

"Make your mind easy," said Maitre Voigt. "No more of this now, and no
thanks! Be here to-morrow morning, before the other clerk comes--between
seven and eight. You will find me in this room; and I will myself
initiate you in your work. Go away! go away! I have letters to write. I
won't hear a word more."

Dismissed with this generous abruptness, and satisfied with the
favourable impression he had left on the old man's mind, Obenreizer was
at leisure to revert to the mental note he had made that Maitre Voigt
once had a client whose name was Vendale.

"I ought to know England well enough by this time;" so his meditations
ran, as he sat on a bench in the yard; "and it is not a name I ever
encountered there, except--" he looked involuntarily over his
shoulder--"as _his_ name. Is the world so small that I cannot get away
from him, even now when he is dead? He confessed at the last that he had
betrayed the trust of the dead, and misinherited a fortune. And I was to
see to it. And I was to stand off, that my face might remind him of it.
Why _my_ f