It was about this time that Mme. Fauvel, charmed with the improvement in Raoul, asked her husband to give him some employment.

M. Fauvel was delighted to please his wife, and at once offered Raoul the place of corresponding clerk with a salary of five hundred francs a month.

The appointment pleased Raoul; but, in obedience to Clameran’s command, he refused it, saying his vocation was not banking.

This refusal so provoked the banker, that he told Raoul, if he was so idle and lazy, not to call on him for money again, or expect him to do anything to assist him.  Raoul seized this pretext for ostensibly ceasing his visits.

When he wanted to see his mother, he would come in the afternoon, when he knew that M. Fauvel would be from home; and he only came often enough to keep informed of what was going on in the household.

This sudden lull after so many storms appeared ominous to Madeleine.  She was more certain that ever that the plot was now ripe, and would suddenly burst upon them, without warning.  She did not impart her presentiment to her aunt, but prepared herself for the worst.

“What can they be doing?” Mme. Fauvel would say; “can they have ceased to persecute us?”

“Yes:  what can they be doing?” Madeleine would murmur.

Louis and Raoul gave no signs of life, because, like expert hunters, they were silently hiding, and watching for a favorable opportunity of pouncing upon their victims.

Never losing sight of Prosper for a day, Raoul had exhausted every effort of his fertile mind to compromise his honor, to insnare him into some inextricable entanglement.  But, as he had foreseen, the cashier’s indifference offered little hope of success.

Clameran began to grow impatient at this delay, and had fully determined to bring matters to a crisis himself, when one morning, about three o’clock, he was aroused by Raoul.

He knew that some event of great importance must have happened, to make his nephew come to his house at this hour of the morning.

“What is the matter?” he anxiously inquired.

“Perhaps nothing; perhaps everything.  I have just left Prosper.”

“Well?”

“I had him, Mme. Gypsy, and three other friends to dine with me.  After dinner, I made up a game of baccarat, but Prosper took no interest in it, although he was quite tipsy.”

“You must be drunk yourself to come here waking me up in the middle of the night, to hear this idle gabble,” said Louis angrily.  “What the devil do you mean by it?”

“Now, don’t be in a hurry; wait until you hear the rest.”

“Morbleu! speak, then!”

“After the game was over, we went to supper; Prosper became intoxicated, and betrayed the secret name with which he closes the money-safe.”

At these words Clameran uttered a cry of triumph.

“What was the word?”