"For forty years, now, monsieur, we have played the part of fate," replied she, with terrible pride, "and do just what we will in Paris. More than one family--even in the Faubourg Saint-Germain--has told me all its secrets, I can tell you. I have made and spoiled many a match, I have destroyed many a will and saved many a man's honor. I have in there," and she tapped her forehead, "a store of secrets which are worth thirty-six thousand francs a year to me; and you--you will be one of my lambs, hoh! Could such a woman as I am be what I am if she revealed her ways and means? I act. "Whatever I may do, sir, will be the result of an accident; you need feel no remorse. You will be like a man cured by a clairvoyant; by the end of a month, it seems all the work of Nature." Victorin broke out in a cold sweat. The sight of an executioner would have shocked him less than this prolix and pretentious Sister of the Hulks. As he looked at her purple-red gown, she seemed to him dyed in blood. "Madame, I do not accept the help of your experience and skill if success is to cost anybody's life, or the least criminal act is to come of it." "You are a great baby, monsieur," replied the woman; "you wish to remain blameless in your own eyes, while you want your enemy to be overthrown." Victorin shook his head in denial. "Yes," she went on, "you want this Madame Marneffe to drop the prey she has between her teeth. But how do you expect to make a tiger drop his piece of beef? Can you do it by patting his back and saying, 'Poor Puss'? You are illogical. You want a battle fought, but you object to blows.--Well, I grant you the innocence you are so careful over. I have always found that there was material for hypocrisy in honesty! One day, three months hence, a poor priest will come to beg of you forty thousand francs for a pious work--a convent to be rebuilt in the Levant--in the desert.--If you are satisfied with your lot, give the good man the money. You will pay more than that into the treasury. It will be a mere trifle in comparison with what you will get, I can tell you." She rose, standing on the broad feet that seemed to overflow her satin shoes; she smiled, bowed, and vanished. "The Devil has a sister," said Victorin, rising. He saw the hideous stranger to the door, a creature called up from the dens of the police, as on the stage a monster comes up from the third cellar at the touch of a fairy's wand in a ballet-extravaganza. After finishing what he had to do at the Courts, Victorin went to call on Monsieur Chapuzot, the head of one of the most important branches of the Central Police, to make some inquiries about the stranger. Finding Monsieur Chapuzot alone in his office, Victorin thanked him for his help. "You sent me an old woman who might stand for the incarnation of the criminal side of Paris." Monsieur Chapuzot laid his spectacles on his papers and looked at the lawyer with astonishment.