breath and said in a low
voice:

"One way or another, things will come to a head to-night. This Jewish
intriguante and the old fox her father are going away by the railway at
nine o'clock, and Felix will escort them. Antonino will be alone here,
and I mean to make him my assistant as he has been my husband's."

"Better trust nobody! it is risky, and, besides, with an accomplice, the
reward becomes less by his share."

"How much is all? Will you pay five million marks?"

"That's too much. Put it two millions--half when you hand over the
cipher, half when we hold the working drawings and Antonino's
ammunition."

"Be it so," she answered after a brief pause, during which both
listened. "If Antonino will help me, so much the better for him. It
would be delightful to see Italy with a native! Now go away. We must not
be seen conversing together."

"If the young man turns restive?" suggested the prudent spy.

"Impossible! he is charmed. However, remember this: Return to-night
after the party has gone to the station, secrete yourself in the grounds
where you can watch the drawing-room windows. If one opens and I call,
run up to aid me. If none open to you, hasten away. The danger with
which I contend will be one which you could not overcome!"

CHAPTER XX.

ON THE EVE.

The evening was calm and clear over Montmorency, where there was even
grandeur in the stillness. Nature--the discreet confident and
inexhaustible counsellor, always ready to intermediate between God and
man--nature was appeasing passion and misery in all bosoms but Felix
Clemenceau's, as he strolled in the garden which he did not expect long
to possess. Rebecca was going away and Cesarine had come, two sufficient
reasons for him to detest the place. He had called upon the scene to
give him advice on his course, and he hoped to understand clearly what
it had commanded to him in the hour of grief tempered with faith. He had
not the resources of others; he could not consult the shades of his
parents; his mother's tomb was not one to be pointed out with pride, any
more than his father's.

It seemed to him that he was ordered to continue struggling till he
vanquished; this he had always tried. Work and seek out! And yet his
mind wavered and his resolve was unsettled. It was the ever dulcet voice
of that Circe which sufficed to agitate and obscure his soul in spite of
his having believed it was forever detached from her. But these
umbrageous and