having found that her name was not
mentioned in it, she had the amazing audacity to return to the body, and
to put the letter back where she had found it. Then only she breathed
freely. She had gotten rid of a man whom she feared. She went to bed,
and slept soundly."

Daniel had become livid.

"That woman is a monster!" he exclaimed.

Brevan said nothing. His eyes shone with intense hatred; his lips were
quivering with indignation. He no longer thought of discretion, of
caution. He forgot himself, and gave himself up to his feelings.

"But I have not done yet, Daniel," he said, after a pause. "There is
another crime on record, of older date. The first appearance of Miss
Brandon in Paris society. You ought to know that also.

"One evening, about four years ago, the president of the Mutual Discount
Society came into the cashier's room to tell him, that, on the following
day, the board of directors would examine his books. The cashier, an
unfortunate man by the name of Malgat, replied that every thing was
ready; but, the moment the president had turned his back, he took a
sheet of paper, and wrote something like this:--

"'Forgive me, I have been an honest man forty years long; now a fatal
passion has made me mad. I have drawn money from the bank which was
intrusted to my care; and, in order to screen my defalcations, I have
forged several notes. I cannot conceal my crime any longer. The first
defalcation is only six months old. The whole amount is about four
hundred thousand francs. I cannot bear the disgrace which I have
incurred; in an hour I shall have ceased to live.'

"Malgat put this letter in a prominent place on his desk, and then
rushed out, without a cent in his pocket, to throw himself into the
canal. But when he reached the bank, and saw the foul, black water, he
was frightened. For hours and hours he walked up and down, asking God in
his madness for courage. He never found that courage.

"But what was he to do? He could not flee, having no money; and where
should he hide? He could not return to his bank; for there, by this
time, his crime must have become known. In his despair he ran as far as
the Champs Elysees, and late in the night he knocked at the door of Miss
Brandon's house.

"They did not know yet what had happened, and he was admitted. Then, in
his wild despair, he told them all, begging them to give him a couple of
hundreds only of the four hundred thousand which he had stolen in order