"M. de Vaux," he stammered, "things look black, I know, but I implore you not to condemn me in your mind unheard. I swear to you that I did not know of this. I was coming home from an absence due to business, and was as horrified as you could be when I was informed of the terrible story." "You will all three be broken on the wheel," was the pithy answer of the baron. The chevalier, with chin sunk upon his breast, saw and heard nothing; his weak brain was in a daze. But the abbé glanced quickly at the marquis and smiled with profound disdain. He had always felt for his elder brother a contempt so deep that it approached near to loathing. Worldly prudence alone had cloaked his feelings, for he knew him to be of the mean sort that, too feeble for independent action, will, while prating virtue, glibly accept the fruit of another's wickedness, or denounce him in case of failure. The aspect of this sorry apologetic craven acted on the abbé's nerves like a dash of refreshing spray. The old gleam glittered for a moment from under half-closed lids. He shook himself, raised his head proudly, and pointing a finger at Clovis, harshly laughed aloud-- "Remember that, unluckily, we are related," he sneered; "and spare me this humiliating spectacle. We have all three played our game and lost, and must pay the stakes with resignation." "I assure you, Monsieur le Baron, that he lies malignantly," the hapless Clovis began; but his words died away in confusion, for his flesh quivered under the abbé's words and scathing looks as under a whip. "Believe him not," scoffed Pharamond. "We are guilty of lamentable failure, for which I am honestly ashamed, due in part to the pusillanimity of yonder cur; and failure, as we all know, is the one sin that never may hope for pardon. He knew perfectly well the intended programme, and having given his tacit consent was despatched on a mission, which he apparently has bungled, that we might not be hampered by his cowardice. We failed, as better and stronger men have failed, and I am sorry for the mistake. It would have been shorter and safer to have made away with him as well as his puling wife. Speak, chevalier--you are a drunken sot, but not a craven--is not this the truth?" Urged by the sharp elbow of his brother, lustily applied, Phebus raised his head and looked dreamily around; then saying simply "Yes; what you say is truth," relapsed into stupid reverie.