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“Take a seat on that sofa, by the side of my little dog. Is he not pretty?”

“Very,” replied Dupleisis; “but I am more interested in his mistress. We have not met for a week,–not, in fact, since two thieves robbed Mr. Reed of a fortune.”

Dupleisis said this with pointed significance; but the lady preserved the coolest unconcern.

“The muse of the foot-lights is the most jealous of mistresses.”

“True,” replied Dupleisis; “but in this case she has had rivals.”

“I choose to amuse myself with a crowd, who eat my suppers and make me laugh.”

“And among the jesters you number the Minister of War and Chief of Police.”

“I may need their aid.”

“Mademoiselle Milan, you do need their aid; but, with all your charming courtesies, you have not secured it.”

“M. Dupleisis chooses to speak in enigmas. I am obtuse.”

“At our last most agreeable tete-a-tete, you were pleased to feel interested in my somewhat sluggish history. Would you pardon a few inquiries concerning yours?”

“M. Dupleisis, I am at your service.”

“Two months since, you resided in the Rue de Luxembourg, Paris.”

“This is an assertion. I expected an inquiry.”

Dupleisis took from a pocket-book a half-sheet of thin, closely-written letter-paper, and spread it out on the table before him.

“It was about two months ago that this document was blown from your window. Am I right, Mademoiselle Milan?”

“It was blown from my writing-desk into the street.”

“I knew I was right; for ’twas I that picked it up. It is a letter, written in Rio de Janeiro, and contains the details of a plot to rob one of the wealthiest diamond-dealers in this city. You may think my interest singular, mademoiselle; but the merchant deals with every large jewelry-house in Paris. Their loss by a felony of this magnitude would be immense.”

Mademoiselle Milan listened with an air of indifference that was absolutely freezing.

“You may think it singular, also, that when, shortly afterward, you started for Bordeaux, I went by the same train; and that when you concluded to prolong your journey to Brazil by the French packet, via Lisbon, it was I who assisted with your luggage.”

“There is nothing low enough to be singular in M. Dupleisis.”

“Mademoiselle Milan, one week ago you and Edgar Fay went into the hall-way of Mr. Reed’s house together, and you went out alone. Denial is useless, for I saw you. If you remember, the door was banged violently, and it was you who did it. A careless servant locked him in. He opened the secret vault in that table, and abstracted diamonds worth a million. You were wise in courting the Minister of War and Chief of Police, but your passports have been stopped. No power under heaven can get you out of Rio.”

For the first time her countenance changed, and she looked at Dupleisis with a smile of contemptuous pity.

“So I was not wrong in suspecting you to be an agent of the police. How strong an alloy of cunning exists in every fool! The man whom you believe to have stolen a million is my own brother. The letter which caused this display of sagacity was paid for out of my wretched weekly earnings. At the sacrifice of every sou I owned, I came here to thwart the plot it spoke of.”

Dupleisis glanced at her with an incredulous sneer.

“He wrote to Paris for a woman to assist him,–what weaklings you men are!–and, utterly unable to prevent the larceny, I pretended to be his accomplice. While you were exposing your ill-breeding by coarse criticisms on a people in every way your superior, I substituted for the real diamonds the paste gems you were so particular in noticing. What was stolen is my property. Go back to Mr. Reed, and tell him his diamonds are bundled into an old hat that hangs on the wall of his sitting-room; and tell him, furthermore, it was I who put them there. I did court the favor of the Minister of War, but it was to put that man in the army. I have watched over him for years, and, by the blessing of God, I will watch over him to the end. He has never known me, nor will he—-” Suddenly she turned livid, and nervously clasped her hands over her breast.