A light began to dawn on the Professor. “Is it possible that you were the neighbour whose unseasonable agitation during the small hours of the night caused me, in the total absence of towels or other available material, to stuff the money in question under the crack of the door in order to continue my intellectual labours undisturbed?” “That’s me,” said Taber Tring sullenly. But the Princess, who had been listening to the Professor’s disquisition with a look of lovely bewilderment gradually verging on boredom, here intervened with a sudden flash of attention. “What sort of noises proceeded from my Taber’s room at that advanced hour of the night?” she inquisitorially demanded of the Professor. “Oh, shucks,” said her betrothed in a weary tone. “Aren’t they all alike, every one of ’em?” He turned to the Professor. “I daresay I _was_ making a noise. I was about desperate. Stony broke, and didn’t know which way to turn next. I guess _you_’d have made a noise in my place.” The Professor felt a stirring of sympathy for the stricken youth. “I’m sorry for you—very sorry,” he said. “If I had known your situation I should have tried to master my impatience, and should probably not have crammed the money under the door; in which case it would not have been destroyed in the fire....” (“How like the reflexions of a Chinese sage!” the Princess admiringly murmured.) “Destroyed in the fire? It wasn’t,” said Taber Tring. The Professor reeled back and was obliged to support himself upon the nearest chair. “It wasn’t?” “Trust me,” said the young man. “I was there, and I stole it.” “You stole it—his money?” The Princess instantly flung herself on his bosom. “To save your beloved from ruin? Oh, how Christlike—how Dostoyevskian!” She addressed herself with streaming eyes to the Professor. “Oh, spare him, sir, for heaven’s sake spare him! What shall I do to avert your vengeance? Shall I prostitute myself in the streets of Cannes? I will do anything to atone to you for his heroic gesture in stealing your money—” Taber Tring again put her gently aside. “Do drop it, Betsy. This is not a woman’s job. I stole that money in order to gamble with it, and I’ve got to pay it back, and all that I won with it too.” He paused and faced about on the Professor. “Isn’t that so, sir?” he questioned. “I’ve been puzzling over it day and night for the last two days, and I can’t figure it out any other way. Hard on you, Betsy, just as we thought our fortune was made; but my firm conviction, Professor Hibbart, as a man of New England stock, is that at this moment I owe you the sum of one million seven hundred and fifty thousand francs.” “My God,” screamed the Professor, “what system did you play?” Mr. Tring’s open countenance snapped shut like a steel trap. “That’s my secret,” he said politely; and the Professor had to acknowledge that it was.