The marquis relapsed into meditation. How did Lauriane obtain Villareal's dagger? She must have received it from him, since she had disposed of it as her own property. In vain did he search the genealogical tree of the De Beuvres, he found there no name to which the initials S. A. could refer. "Can it be," he said to himself, "that she made the same agreement with him that she afterward made with me?" He consoled himself, however, by the thought that she apparently cared but little for the former compact, since she had sacrificed it to him; but there was none the less something incomprehensible in the episode, and the honest marquis was not yet foolish enough not to fear that he was the victim of some practical joke. And then, what the child had said complicated the confusion in his mind, and he could not imagine what intrigue of destiny or mystification encompassed that dagger. He was inclined to go to have an explanation at once with his guest; but he remembered that Lauriane had urged him to conceal her pledge and to let no one see it. Adamas saw the anxiety on his master's brow and was touched by it. "What is it, monsieur," he said, "what can your poor old Adamas do to relieve your perplexity?" "I do not know, my friend. I would like to be able to divine how it happens that the Moor has a weapon like this, bearing the same device and the same initials." Then, lowering his voice so that Mario could not hear: "You told me, and it has seemed to me that that young woman was very honest. But can she have stolen this dagger from our guest? That is something that I cannot endure, that there should be thieving in my house." Adamas instantly espoused his master's suspicions, especially as Mario, feeling that he had spoken heedlessly, was gliding out of the room on tiptoe, to avoid further questions. Adamas detained him. "You have been telling us fairy tales, my pretty boy," said he, "and for that you deserve to lose my lord and master's favor. It is not true that your Mercedes has what you say she has, or----" The marquis interrupted him, not wishing that the charge should be made before the child. "Has your mother had the dagger a long time, my boy?" he said. The child had passed some time with the gypsies, so he knew what stealing was. He was blest, moreover, with extraordinary shrewdness. He understood the suspicion he had brought on his adopted mother, and he preferred to disobey her rather than not justify her. "Yes," he replied, "a very long time." And, as he had assumed an exceedingly proud and self-assured air, the marquis and Adamas felt that they had in their hands a means of making him speak. "Then it was Monsieur de Villareal who gave it to her?" said Adamas. "Oh! no, he left it behind----" "Where?" queried the marquis. "Come, you must tell us, or I shall have no more confidence in you, boy. Where did he leave it?"