“She will prove to be our ruin:  that is all.”

“You might as well be frank, and say you are in love with her yourself.”

“I am only in love with her money,” replied Raoul, with an angry frown.

“Then what are you complaining of?  I shall give you half her fortune.  You will have the money without being troubled with the wife; the profit without the burden.”

“I am not over fifty years old,” said Raoul conceitedly.  “I can appreciate a pretty woman better than you.”

“Enough of that,” interrupted Louis angrily.  “The day I relieved your pressing wants, and brought you to Paris, you promised to follow my directions, to help me carry out my plan; did you not?”

“Yes; but not the plot you are hatching now!  You forget that my liberty, perhaps my life, is at stake.  You may hold the cards, but I must have the right of advising you.”

It was midnight before the accomplices separated.

“I won’t stand idle,” said Louis.  “I agree with you that something must be done at once.  But I can’t decide what it shall be on the spur of the moment.  Meet me here at this hour to-morrow night, and I will have some plan ready for you.”

“Very good.  I will be here.”

“And remember, don’t be imprudent!”

“My costume ought to convince you that I am not anxious to be recognized by anyone.  I left such an ingenious alibi, that I defy anybody to prove that I have been absent from my house at Vesinet.  I even took the precaution to travel in a third-class car.  Well, good-night.  I am going to the inn.”

Raoul went off after these words, apparently unconscious of having aroused suspicion in the breast of his accomplice.

During his adventurous life, Clameran had transacted “business” with too many scamps not to know the precise amount of confidence to place in a man like Raoul.

The old adage, “Honor among thieves,” seldom holds good after the “stroke.”  There is always a quarrel over the division of the spoils.

This distrustful Clameran foresaw a thousand difficulties and counter-plots to be guarded against in his dealings with Raoul.

“Why,” he pondered, “did the villain assume this disguise?  Why this alibi at Paris?  Can he be laying a trap for me?  It is true that I have a hold upon him; but then I am completely at his mercy.  Those accursed letters which I have written to him, while here, are so many proofs against me.  Can he be thinking of cutting loose from me, and making off with all the profits of our enterprise?”

Louis never once during the night closed his eyes; but by daybreak he had fully made up his mind how to act, and with feverish impatience waited for evening to come, to communicate his views with Raoul.

His anxiety made him so restless that the unobserving Gaston finally noticed it, and asked him what the matter was; if he was sick, or troubled about anything.