Rue Chaptal, dressed yourself, and attended a _soiree_ given by one of those women who style themselves dramatic artistes, and who are a disgrace to the stage; who receive a hundred crowns a year, and yet keep their carriages, at Mlle. Wilson's."
"You are right, monsieur."
"There is heavy playing at Wilson's?"
"Sometimes."
"You are in the habit of visiting places of this sort. Were you not connected in some way with a scandalous adventure which took place at the house of a woman named Crescenzi?"
"I was summoned to testify, having witnessed a theft."
"Gamble generally leads to stealing. And did you not play baccarat at Wilson's, and lose eighteen hundred francs?"
"Excuse me, monsieur, only eleven hundred."
"Very well. In the morning you paid a note of a thousand francs."
"Yes, monsieur."
"Moreover, there remained in your desk five hundred francs, and you had four hundred in your purse when you were arrested. So that altogether, in twenty-four hours, four thousand five hundred francs--"
 Prosper was not discountenanced, but stupefied. Not being aware of the powerful means of investigation possessed by the law, he wondered how in so short a time the judge could have obtained such accurate information. "Your statement is correct, monsieur," he said finally.
"Where did all this money come from? The evening before you had so little that you were obliged to defer the payment of a small bill."
"The day to which you allude, I sold through an agent some bonds I had, about three thousand francs; besides, I took from the safe two thousand francs in advance on my salary."
The prisoner had given clear answers to all the questions put to him, and M. Patrigent thought he would attack him on a new point. "You say you have no wish to conceal any of your actions; then why did you write this note to one of your companions?" Here he held up the mysterious note. This time the blow struck. Prosper's eyes dropped before the inquiring look of the judge.
"I thought," he stammered, "I wished--"
"You wished to screen this woman?"
"Yes, monsieur; I did. I knew that a man in my condition, accused of a robbery, has every fault, every weakness he has ever indulged in, charged against him as a great crime."
"Which means that you knew that the presence of a woman at your house would tell very much against you, and that justice would not excuse this scandalous defiance of public morality. A man who respects himself so little as to associate with a worthless woman, does not elevate her to his standard, but he descends to her base level."
"Monsieur!"
"I suppose you know who the woman is, whom you permit to bear the honest name borne by your mother?"
"Mme. Gypsy was a governess when I first knew her. She was born at Oporto and came to France with a Portuguese family."
"Her name is not 

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