e.

"You say truly when you call Madame Vulpes a devil of a woman," I
continued. "Simon, she told me wonderful things to-night, or rather
was the means of telling me wonderful things. Ah! if I could only get a
diamond that weighed one hundred and forty carats!"

Scarcely had the sigh with which I uttered this desire died upon my lips
when Simon, with the aspect of a wild beast, glared at me savagely, and,
rushing to the mantelpiece, where some foreign weapons hung on the wall,
caught up a Malay creese, and brandished it furiously before him.

"No!" he cried in French, into which he always broke when excited. "No!
you shall not have it! You are perfidious! You have consulted with that
demon, and desire my treasure! But I will die first! Me, I am brave! You
can not make me fear!"

All this, uttered in a loud voice, trembling with excitement, astounded
me. I saw at a glance that I had accidentally trodden upon the edges of
Simon's secret, whatever it was. It was necessary to reassure him.

"My dear Simon," I said, "I am entirely at a loss to know what you mean.
I went to Madame Vulpes to consult with her on a scientific problem,
to the solution of which I discovered that a diamond of the size I just
mentioned was necessary. You were never alluded to during the evening,
nor, so far as I was concerned, even thought of. What can be the meaning
of this outburst? If you happen to have a set of valuable diamonds in
your possession, you need fear nothing from me. The diamond which I
require you could not possess; or, if you did possess it, you would not
be living here."

Something in my tone must have completely reassured him, for his
expression immediately changed to a sort of constrained merriment,
combined however, with a certain suspicious attention to my movements.
He laughed, and said that I must bear with him; that he was at certain
moments subject to a species of vertigo, which betrayed itself in
incoherent speeches, and that the attacks passed off as rapidly as they
came.

He put his weapon aside while making this explanation, and endeavored,
with some success, to assume a more cheerful air.

All this did not impose on me in the least. I was too much accustomed
to analytical labors to be baffled by so flimsy a veil. I determined to
probe the mystery to the bottom.

"Simon," I said gayly, "let us forget all this over a bottle of
Burgundy. I have a case of Lausseure's _Clos Vougeot_ downstairs,
fragrant with the