After the porter had gone, M. Verduret drew from his pocket his diary, and compared a page of it with the notes which he had spread over the table.

"These notes were not sent by the thief," he said, after an attentive examination of them.

"Do you think so, monsieur?"

"I am certain of it; that is, unless the thief is endowed with extraordinary penetration and forethought. One thing is certain: these ten thousand francs are not part of the three hundred and fifty thousand which were stolen from the safe."

"Yet," said Prosper, who could not account for this certainty on the part of his protector, "yet--"

"There is no doubt about it: I have the numbers of all the stolen notes."

"What! When even I did not have them?"

"But the bank did, fortunately. When we undertake an affair we must anticipate everything, and forget nothing. It is a poor excuse for a man to say, 'I did not think of it' when he commits some oversight. I thought of the bank."

If, in the beginning, Prosper had felt some repugnance about confiding in his father's friend, the feeling had now disappeared. He understood that alone, scarcely master of himself, governed only by the inspirations of inexperience, never would he have the patient perspicacity of this singular man.

Verduret continued talking to himself, as if he had absolutely forgotten Prosper's presence: "Then, as this package did not come from the thief, it can only come from the other person, who was near the safe at the time of the robbery, but could not prevent it, and now feels remorse. The probability of two persons assisting at the robbery, a probability suggested by the scratch, is now converted into undeniable certainty. Ergo, I was right."

Prosper listening attentively tried hard to comprehend this monologue, which he dared not interrupt.

"Let us seek," went on the fat man, "this second person, whose conscience pricks him, and yet who dares not reveal anything."

He read the letter over several times, scanning the sentences, and weighing every word.

"Evidently this letter was composed by a woman," he finally said. "Never would one man doing another man a service, and sending him money, use the word 'succor.' A 

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