cracked door-bell was violently rung.
Corentine had just gone out, so he went to the door, where, to his
astonishment, he was confronted by Baron Huchenard and Bos the dealer
in manuscripts. Bos dashed into the study wildly waving his arms, while
breathless ejaculations flew out of his red tangle of beard and hair:
'Forged! The documents are forged! I can prove it! I can prove it!'

Astier-Rehu, not understanding at first, looked at the Baron, who looked
at the ceiling. But when he had picked up the meaning of the dealer's
outcry--that the three autograph letters of Charles V., sold by Madame
Astier to Bos and by him transferred to Huchenard, were asserted not
to be genuine--he said with a disdainful smile, that he would readily
repurchase them, as he regarded them with a confidence not to be
affected by any means whatsoever.

'Allow me, Mr. Secretary, allow me. I would ask you,' said Baron
Huchenard, slowly unbuttoning his macintosh as he spoke, and drawing
the three documents out of a large envelope, 'to observe this.' The
parchments were so changed as scarcely to seem the same; their smoky
brown was bleached to a perfect whiteness; and upon each, clear and
legible in the middle of the page, below the signature of Charles V.,
was this mark,

BB.

Angouleme 1836.

'It was Delpech, the Professor of Chemistry, our learned colleague of
the Academie des Sciences, who--' but of the Baron's explanation nothing
but a confused murmur reached poor Leonard. There was no colour in his
face, nor a drop of blood left at the tips of the big heavy fingers, in
whose hold the three autographs shook.

'The 800L. shall be at your house this evening, M. Bos,' he managed to
say at last with what moisture was left in his mouth.

Bos protested and appealed. The Baron had given him 900L.

'900L., then,' said Astier-Rehu, making a great effort to show them out.
But in the dimly-lighted hall he kept back his colleague, and begged him
humbly, as a Member of the Academie des Inscriptions, and for the honour
of the whole Institute, to say nothing of this unlucky affair.

'Certainly, my dear sir, certainly, on one condition.'

'Name it, name it.'

'You will shortly receive notice that I am a candidate for Loisillon's
chair.' The Secretary's answer was a firm clasp of hand in hand, which
pledged the assistance of himself and his friends.

Once alone, the unhappy man sank down before the table with its load