The scene the two base accomplices were playing with such noteworthy spirit to cajole the rich Englishman was assuredly touching, and it was interpreted with a consummate art worthy of professional actors. But the play was only beginning! Nini now tore herself from the arms of her supposed relative and turning to Ascott, gazed long at her lover with a look at once tender and aggrieved. Then, very softly, she murmured: “Oh, sir! sir! what have you done?” Next old Moche took the cue: “You have dishonoured her, sir; you have committed an irreparable crime; it is shameful, abominable!” While her uncle was speaking, Nini, overwhelmed by the intensity of her emotion, fell to the floor and lay sobbing in the cleverly calculated pose of a beautiful statue of Grief! Ascott was dreadfully upset by the unpleasant incident. The young man cursed the mad fit that had come over him the night before, while he experienced a very genuine regret at the thought that he had ruined this pretty child, who through his fault had lost her good name for ever. Meantime a fresh witness of the lamentable scene suddenly arrived. John burst into the room like a whirlwind. Running to his master: “Sir, sir,” he cried, “the world is coming to an end!” The Englishman, whose raging headache, so far from getting better, was growing more agonizing every minute, nevertheless preserved an imperturbable calm. “What ever is to do, John, what d’you want?” “Sir,” continued the domestic, who with blanched face and eyes unnaturally dilated, was staring at his master and Père Moche, and above all at the young woman lying on the floor, “Sir, it is the law!” “The law!” cried Ascott; “you are mad, John!” “No, sir, no, I am not mad; it is a Judge, a Court of Law, I don’t know what all!” His master was soon to be enlightened. Just as a little before M. Moche had pushed into the bedroom without being announced, with a like lack of ceremony three individuals had made their way along the corridor to the door of the room, and now stepped across the threshold. One of them advanced in front of the other two, a man of forty or so, short, with a jovial-looking face and a heavy, black moustache; he pulled from his pocket a tricolour scarf, which he displayed before Ascott’s astonished eyes. “I am the Commissary of Police, sir,” he announced. “Is it to Monsieur Ascott I have the honour to speak?” “To the same,” replied the young man, turning pale, while drops of cold sweat gathered on his brow. “You sent for me, sir,” pursued the Commissary. “I!” exclaimed Ascott, “never such a thing! it wasn’t I!” M. Moche broke into the dialogue: “It was I, Monsieur le Commissaire, who took the liberty of asking you to come, and also, you will remember, the two gentlemen who are with you.” “I’m utterly at sea,” muttered Ascott, in a wearied voice; “I don’t understand ...” “You will soon understand!” declared Moche, truculently.