e who had done
her best to throw his wife into De Croisenois' arms. She told him that
it was she who had worked the arrangements for the meeting, and had
written the anonymous letter."

"Why did he not kill her?" cried Hortebise. "Had she not all his
letters, and taunted him with the production of them? Ah, my dear
friends, do not let us flatter ourselves that we have the sole monopoly
of blackmailing. The high-born Countess plunged her hand into the Duke's
coffers just as if she had been a mere adventuress. It is only ten days
ago that she borrowed--you will observe the entry of it as a loan--a
large sum to settle an account of Van Klopen's. But let us now speak of
the child who took the place of the boy whom the Duchess brought into
the world. You know him, doctor?"

"Yes, I have often seen him. He was a good-looking young fellow."

"He was, but he was a degraded scoundrel, after all. He was educated
and brought up without regard to expense, but he always displayed low
tastes, and, had he lived, would have brought discredit on the name he
bore. He was a thorn in the side of the Duke and Duchess, and I believe
that they felt great relief when he died of brain fever, brought on by a
drunken debauch. His parents, or those whom he supposed to be such, were
present at his death-bed, for they had learned to consider their sorrows
as the just chastisement of heaven. The boy having died, the family of
Champdoce seemed likely to become extinct, and then it was that Norbert
decided to do what his wife had long urged upon him, to seek for and
reclaim the child which he had caused to be placed in the Foundling
Hospital at Vendome. It went against his pride to diverge from the
course he had determined on as best, but doubts had arisen in his mind
as to his wife's guilt, and Diana's confessions had reassured him as to
the paternity of the missing boy. It was thus with hope in his heart,
and furnished with every necessary document, that he started for
Vendome; but there a terrible disappointment awaited him. The
authorities of the hospital, on consulting the register, found that a
child had been admitted on the day and hour mentioned by Norbert, and
that his description of the infant's clothing tallied exactly with the
entries. But the child was no longer in the hospital, and there was no
clue to his whereabouts. He had, at the age of twelve, been apprenticed
to a tanner, but he had run away from his master, and the most active
a