“Believe in Uncle Maurice! Why, I believe in him, and I created him myself,--that is, _our_ Uncle Maurice. Dear kind old chap! I feel as if I had just shaken hands with him.” “But,” persisted Fontaine, “if Madame Fleury should believe in him and the fortune, wouldn’t it be that much more difficult for me to escape from her?” [Illustration] “We should be in that much better condition to fight her. No, my boy, don’t refuse a fortune of two million francs even on paper. Why,” continued Marsac, producing from a corner his palette, brushes, and an unfinished portrait of a Spanish bull-fighter, “look! I will make you a portrait of Uncle Maurice;” and with a few bold strokes the bull-fighter assumed the appearance of a hale old gentleman of sixty, in a black coat and a white tie. “But there is no time to lose,” cried he, throwing down his palette and brushes. “It ought to be in the afternoon papers. There is the clock on the church-tower striking eleven,--I shall have time yet before they go to press. Give me your shoes--” Fontaine kicked them off, and Marsac put them on. “And your hat is better than mine--” Fontaine ran and fetched the hat. “Let me see; the paragraph ought to be written out.” Marsac seated himself at the table, and Fontaine hung over him, while he rapidly wrote half a page, and then, rising and going out, cried: “Keep up your heart, old boy! You are not married yet; you are a long way off from being Monsieur Fleury!” Left alone, Fontaine remained silent and overwhelmed at the various and startling incidents which had befallen him that morning. “How little one knows,” he thought, “what an hour may bring forth! It is now eleven o’clock: since ten o’clock, I have become engaged to be married; I have found a long-lost uncle; he has died, and left me two million francs.” A slight sound caused him to raise his head, and he saw a letter pushed under the door. He ran forward and opened it, and then literally fell over on his chair with amazement and chagrin. The letter ran,-- MY DEAR NEPHEW AUGUSTE,--The report which reached my family that I was dead was erroneous. I am very much alive, and think of soon revisiting my native land. I have had a hard struggle, and I may not meet with a very flattering reception from my family, of whom you are my only really near relative; but I feel quite able to take care of myself. I may appear at any moment; and, until we meet, I am Your affectionate uncle, MAURICE FONTAINE. Fontaine rallied enough to run to the window to call Marsac back. But it was too late. Marsac, with the slip of white paper in his hand, was just turning the corner. [Illustration] Chapter II Marsac returned within three hours, to be confronted by Fontaine with a pale face and Uncle Maurice’s letter.