"That's his way of thinking, and he's profoundly in earnest about it," thought Landri, as he closed the bulky volume. "That's enough to make my opposition exasperate him, so that he won't have anything more to do with me until I have given way.--Where were my wits? He wants to see me to-morrow about those same matters that he had Métivier write me about. Must I imagine, too, that he has mysterious reasons for dividing our property? He told me in this very room of his purpose to do that. That alone proves how much weight he attaches to my offence against him. In his eyes it's a crime. I ought to congratulate myself that he is so rigid in his convictions." This explanation was very plausible. But it did not allay the vague anxiety that the telegram had caused Landri. For this reason: Maître Métivier had sent him numerous papers to sign, about a fortnight before, accompanying them with a long letter, of a more personal sort. He said in it that he strongly approved of this segregation of the property of the father and son, and that he saw therein good augury for the future. He added that M. de Claviers had, upon his advice, entrusted the liquidation of his indebtedness to a former clerk of his, Métivier's, one M. Cauvet, an advocate who made a specialty of notarial practice. This Cauvet had discovered a serious irregularity almost immediately. Chaffin had been dismissed. "Perhaps Monsieur le Marquis was a little severe," observed the cautious Métivier. "Although the fraud was highly probable, it was not absolutely certain." "So I was right," was Landri's instant thought, "Chaffin too was a traitor." And he had gone no farther. In his present reflections matters assumed a different aspect. Such violence under excitement was certainly a pronounced feature of M. de Claviers' temperament. No other reason was necessary to explain it than the discovery of a breach of trust. But the consequences? Landri remembered that the son of the steward thus summarily dismissed was Pierre Chaffin, the physician who had watched at the bedside of the dying Jaubourg. Suppose that that fellow had repeated to his father what he had unquestionably overheard? And suppose that the father, to revenge himself, had in his turn repeated that secret? Suppose that he had written to the person most interested? "No," Landri answered his own questions, "Chaffin may have been tempted by the money that passed through his hands, and have become a thief. But he is not a monster. And Pierre is a physician. There are still some of them, yes, a great many, who keep professional secrets. No; nothing can have happened in that direction, nor in any other. Our conversation of the other day is quite enough." Despite these arguments, the return to Paris, under such conditions and in obedience to that telegram, inspired the young man with an apprehension that he could not overcome.