"Well, well," said Blassemare, who was used to an occasional rebuff, and regarded a gruff word from his principal no more than he did the buzz of a beetle, "I know all that very well; but you, robust fellows, with millions at your back, are less likely to respect those subtle and delicate influences which sometimes, notwithstanding, carry mischief with them, than we poor, sensitive valetudinarians, without a guinea in our pockets; and if you will permit me, I will, when I return to-day, sift the matter for you. I understand woman; it is an art in itself, though not, perhaps, a very high one. A careless conversation with Madame Le Prun will let me further into the mystery, than a year spent in accumulating circumstantial evidence. You may rely on the result." The fermier-general uttered something between a growl and a grunt, which might or might not convey assent; and, waving Blassemare towards the house, walked along the terrace alone; and sat himself down upon the steps at the further end. The mental torpor which supervenes under sudden disasters was not, in the case of the fermier-general, without its dreamy groups of ugly images in prospect. As the light broke, and the darkness began to melt eastward into soft crimson mists and streaks of amber, Monsieur Le Prun rose stiffly from his hard, cold seat, and, with the slow step of a man irresolute and oppressed with profound wrath and mortification, began to return homeward. "Robbers!--thieves!" he muttered bitterly. "How glibly the traitress echoed the cry! The rascal Blassemare gave the true alarm--she did not echo _that_. D---- her, and d----him! Robbers, indeed! Thieves!--very like. I know what they came a thieving for. Upon her balcony--talking in murmurs--the candle extinguished in such a devil of a hurry--the ready cry of 'Thieves'--the spring door open for his flight--and the long delay to find the key. Bah! what proofs are wanting?" He heard just at this point a cracked voice singing a gay love verse from an open window. He knew the voice; every association connected with the performance and the performer jarred upon his nerves. It was indeed the Visconte de Charrebourg, some of whose early gayety had returned with his good fortune. He had, such was the pride of his rich son-in-law, a little household of his own, and kept his state and his own exorbitantly early hours in a suite of rooms assigned him, through one of whose windows, arrayed in a velvet cap and gown of brocade, he was rivalling the lark and greeting the rising sun, and, while sipping his chocolate in the intervals, moved, with the nimble irregularity of idle and active-minded age, about his apartment. "Well, sir, a pleasant affair this!" cried a harsh voice, interrupting his cheery occupation; and on looking round he saw the purple and sinister face of the fermier-general looming through the window.