him all the more inasmuch as Lupin had ended by getting the better of him. But to Clarisse these topics mattered much less than did her anxiety as to the acts which must be performed to save her son; and she sat wrapped in her own thoughts and hardiy listened to him.

"Are you sure," she kept on repeating, "that you will succeed?"

"Absolutely sure."

"But Prasville is not in Paris."

"If he's not there, he's at the Havre. I saw it in the paper yesterday. In any case, a telegram will bring him to Paris at once."

"And do you think that he has enough influence?"

"To obtain the pardon of Vaucheray and Gilbert personally. No. If he had, we should have set him to work before now. But he is intelligent enough to understand the value of what we are bringing him and to act without a moment's delay."

"But, to be accurate, are you not deceived as to that value?"

"Was Daubrecq deceived? Was Daubrecq not in a better position than any of us to know the full power of that paper? Did he not have twenty proofs of it, each more convincing than the last? Think of all that he was able to do, for the sole reason that people knew him to possess the list. They knew it; and that was all. He did not use the list, but he had it. And, having it, he killed your husband. He built up his fortune on the ruin and the disgrace of the Twenty-seven. Only last week, one of the gamest of the lot, d'Albufex, cut his throat in a prison. No, take it from me, as the price of handing over that llst, we could ask for anything we pleased. And we are asking for what? Almost nothing ... less than nothing... the pardon of a child of twenty. In other words, they will take us for idiots. What! We have in our hands.. "

He stopped. Clarisse, exhausted by so much excitement, sat fast asleep in front of him.

They reached Paris at eight o'clock in the morning.

Lupin found two telegrams awaiting him at his flat in the Place de Clichy.

One was from the Masher, dispatched from Avignon on the previous day and stating that all was going well and that they hoped to keep their appointment punctually that evening. The other was from Prasville, dated from the HAvre and addressed to Clarisse:

"Impossible return to-morrow Monday morning. Come to my office five o'clock. Reckon on you absolutely."

"Five o'clock!" said Clarisse. "How late!"

"It's a first-rate hour," declared Lupin.

"Still, if... "

"If the execution is to take place to-morrow morning: is that what you mean to say?... Don't be afraid to speak out, for the execution will not take place."

"The newspapers... "

"You haven't read the newspapers and you are not to read them. Nothing that they can say matters in the least. One thing alone matters: our interview with Prasville. Besides... "

He took a little bottle from a cupboard and, putting his hand on Clarisse's shoulder, said: