"I must speak more plainly still then, it appears. Silas Craig, thirteen years ago it was my good fortune to become acquainted with such a secret as this!" The lawyer raised one of his trembling hands and wiped the perspiration from his icy forehead. "Thirteen years," he muttered. "Yes; I see you remember the date. I was a penniless girl of seventeen when I discovered this secret. I am now thirty; I have kept it long and patiently, have I not?" He did not answer her. "I have waited my time. I knew that this secret would bring me wealth and power whenever it was told. It concerns two men. Those two men are my slaves! At a word from me, they stand before the tribunals of this city branded with crime--loathed by their fellow citizens. A word from me, and they go from homes of luxury to the gloom of a prison, from which but a few steps will lead them to the gallows. Shall I tell you who those two men are, Silas Craig?" "If you please." He tried to speak with his accustomed insolent and mocking smile, but the white lips refused to do his will, and his words came in a hollow whisper. "The first is Don Juan Moraquitos, the second is--you!" The word seemed to whistle from her lips like the bullet from a pistol. The lawyer fell back in his chair as if he had received a blow. "The secret concerns the night upon which Tomaso Crivelli died, and the will which on that night was forged by you, after the real will had been made away with. The secret also concerns the young man called Paul Lisimon. The man whom you dared to accuse of theft." "How--how did you discover this?" "No matter how. Enough that I did make the discovery. Shall I tell you now the price I ask for my secret?" "Yes." All attempts at insolence or defiance upon the part of the lawyer was now abandoned. Silas Craig cowered before the Frenchwoman as humbly as the criminal who awaits the sentence of his judge. "Don Juan Moraquitos will make me his wife and will share with me his own fortune. From him I ask no more than this. We shall leave America for Paris, and in the delight of my native city I shall endeavor to forget the sorrows of my youth. But although I am ambitious, I am not utterly selfish, and in my triumph I wish to secure the happiness of others. Those others are Camillia Moraquitos and the young man it has pleased Don Juan to call Paul Lisimon." "How do they concern me?" asked Silas. "You shall hear. By a foul and infamous plot, the details of which I do not know, but which is doubtless worthy of the person who has concocted it, you have contrived to brand the name of Paul Lisimon with infamy. You will reveal that plot. You will withdraw that shameful accusation; and you will insert an advertisement in every paper printed in New Orleans declaring that young man's innocence. You may call your plot a practical joke if you please. You are so universally beloved and respected that you will of course be believed. That is my first condition. Do you comply with it?"