And Maxence and M. de Tregars were able, at last, to throw down their cards.

Maxence was very pale; and big tears were rolling down his cheeks.

“What disgrace!” he murmured:  “This, then, is the other side of my father’s existence!  This is the way in which he spent the millions which he stole; whilst, in the Rue St. Gilles, he deprived his family of the necessaries of life!”

And, in a tone of utter discouragement,

“Now it is indeed all over, and it is useless to continue our search.  My father is certainly guilty.”

But M. de Tregars was not the man thus to give up the game.

“Guilty?  Yes,” he said, “but dupe also.”

“Whose dupe?”

“That’s what we’ll find out, you may depend upon it.”

“What! after what we have just heard?”

“I have more hope than ever.”

“Did you learn any thing from Mme. Zelie Cadelle, then?”

“Nothing more than you know by those two rascals’ conversation.”

A dozen questions were pressing upon Maxence’s lips; but M. de Tregars interrupted him.

“In this case, my friend, less than ever must we trust appearances.  Let me speak.  Was your father a simpleton?  No!  His ability to dissimulate, for years, his double existence, proves, on the contrary, a wonderful amount of duplicity.  How is it, then, that latterly his conduct has been so extraordinary and so absurd?  But you will doubtless say it was always such.  In that case, I answer you, No; for then his secret could not have been kept for a year.  We hear that other women lived in that house before Mme. Zelie Cadelle.  But who were they?  What has become of them?  Is there any certainty that they have ever existed?  Nothing proves it.

“The servants having been all changed, Amanda, the chambermaid, is the only one who knows the truth; and she will be very careful to say nothing about it.  Therefore, all our positive information goes back no farther than five months.  And what do we hear?  That your father seemed to try and make his extravagant expenditures as conspicuous as possible.  That he did not even take the trouble to conceal the source of the money he spent so profusely; for he told Mme. Zelie that he was at the end of his tether, and that, after having spent his own fortune, he was spending other people’s money.  He had announced his intended departure; he had sold the house, and received its price.  Finally, at the last moment, what does he do?

“Instead of going off quietly and secretly, like a man who is running away, and who knows that he is pursued, he tells every one where he intends to go; he writes it on all his trunks, in letters half a foot high; and then rides in great display to the railway station, with a woman, several carriages, servants, etc.  What is the object of all this?  To get caught?  No, but to start a false scent.  Therefore, in his mind, every thing