o supplicate him to give me my money instantly. I should have found an excuse for this urgent request, and then I should have returned to M. Ferrand and replaced the money I had taken. By an unlucky chance, the banker had gone to Belleville for two days, to his country-house, where he was engaged in some plantations. Everything seemed to conspire against me. I waited for daybreak with intense anxiety, and hastened to Belleville,--the banker had just left for Paris. I returned, saw him, obtained my money, hastened to M. Ferrand; everything was discovered. But this is only a portion of my misfortunes. The notary at once accused me of having robbed him of fifteen thousand francs in bank-notes, which, he declared, were in the drawer of the bureau, with the two thousand francs in gold. This was a base accusation,--an infamous lie! I confess myself guilty of the first abstraction, but, by all that is most sacred in the world, I swear to you, mademoiselle, that I am innocent of the second. I never saw a bank-note in
