Mademoiselle Marguerite’s face brightened with supreme joy. “Then I can serve you, in my turn, my only love,” she exclaimed. “Ah! blessed be God who inspired me, and who thus rewards me for an hour of courage. My poor father’s plan also occurred to me, Pascal. Was it not strange? The material proof of your innocence which you have sought for in vain, is in my possession, written and signed by the Marquis de Valorsay. Like M. de Fondege, he believes that the letter which proves his guilt is annihilated. He burned it himself, and yet it exists.” So saying, she drew from her bosom one of the copies which she had received from Carjat the photographer, and handed it to Pascal, adding, “Look!” Pascal eagerly perused the marvellous facsimile of the letter which the marquis had written to Madame Leon. “Ah! this is the scoundrel’s death warrant.” he exclaimed, exultantly. And approaching Madame Ferailleur, who still stood leaning against the door, silent and motionless: “Look, mother,” he repeated, “look!” And he pointed to this paragraph which was so convincing and so explicit, that the most exacting jury would have asked for no further evidence. “I have formed a plan which will completely efface all remembrance of that cursed P. F., in case any one could condescend to think of him, after the disgrace we fastened upon him the other evening at the house of Madame d’A----.” “Nor is this all,” resumed Mademoiselle Marguerite. “There are other letters which will prove that this plot was the marquis’s work and which give the name of his accomplice, Coralth. And these letters are in the possession of a man of dubious integrity, who was once the marquis’s ally, but who has now become his enemy. He is known as Isidore Fortunat, and lives in the Place de la Bourse.” Marguerite felt that Madame Ferailleur’s keen glance was riveted upon her. She intuitively divined what was passing in the mind of the puritanical old lady, and realized that her whole future, and the happiness of her entire wedded life, depended upon her conduct at that moment. So, desirous of making a full confession, she hastily exclaimed: “My conduct may have seemed strange in a young girl, Pascal. A timid, inexperienced girl, who had been carefully kept from all knowledge of life and evil, would have been crushed by such a burden of disgrace, and could only have wept and prayed. I did weep and pray; but I also struggled and fought. In the hour of peril I found myself endowed with some of the courage and energy which distinguished the poor women of the people among whom I formerly earned my bread. The teachings and miseries of the past were not lost to me!” And as simply as if she were telling the most natural thing in the world, she described the struggle she had undertaken against the world, strong in her faith in Pascal and in his love. “Ah, you are a noble and courageous girl!” exclaimed Madame Ferailleur. “You are worthy of my son, and you will proudly guard our honest name!”