'One word, Monsieur Bertrand,' said Derville. 'This way, if you please.'
Bertrand, greatly surprised, followed the ship-broker to a lane close by—a dark, solitary locality, which suggested an unpleasant misgiving, very pleasantly relieved by Derville's first words.
'Monsieur Bertrand,' he said, 'I was hasty and ill-tempered just now; but I am not a man to cherish malice, and for the sake of—of Marie—of Mademoiselle de la Tour, I am disposed to assist you, although I should not, as you will easily understand, like to have any public or known dealings with you. Seven or eight hundred francs, I understood you to say, the timber you required would amount to?'
'Certainly not more than that, monsieur,' Bertrand contrived to answer, taken away as his breath nearly was by astonishment.
'Here, then, is a note of the Bank of France for one thousand francs.'
'Monsieur!—monsieur!' gasped the astounded recipient.
'You will repay me,' continued Derville, 'when your contract is completed; and you will please to bear strictly in mind, that the condition of any future favour of a like kind is, that you keep this one scrupulously secret.' He then hurried off, leaving Bertrand in a state of utter amazement. This feeling, however, slowly subsided, especially after assuring himself, by the aid of his chamber-lamp, that the note was a genuine one, and not, as he had half feared, a valueless deception. 'This Monsieur Derville,' drowsily murmured Bertrand as he ensconced himself in the bed-clothes, 'is a bon enfant , after all—a generous, magnanimous prince, if ever there was one. But then, to be sure, he wishes to do Marie a service by secretly assisting her futur on in life. Sapristie! It is quite simple, after all, this generosity; for undoubtedly Marie is the most charming—charm—cha'–
Hector Bertrand went to Dufour's timber-yard at about noon the next day, selected what he required, and pompously tendered the thousand-franc note in payment. 'Whe-e-e-e-w!' whistled Dufour, 'the deuce!' at the same time looking with keen scrutiny in his customer's face.
'I received it from Monsieur Mangier in advance,' said Hector in hasty reply to that look, blurting out in some degree inadvertently the assertion which he had been thinking would be the most feasible solution of his sudden riches, since he had been so peremptorily forbidden to mention M. Derville's name.
'It is very generous of Monsieur Mangier,' said Dufour; 'and he is not famous for that virtue either. But let us go to Blaise's bank: I have not sufficient change in the house, and I daresay we shall get silver for it there.'
As often happens in France, a daughter of the banker was the cashier of the establishment; and it was with an accent of womanly commiseration that she said, after minutely examining the note: 'From whom, Monsieur Bertrand, did you obtain possession of this note?'
Bertrand hesitated. A vague feeling of alarm was beating at his heart, and he confusedly bethought him, that it might be better not to repeat the falsehood he had told M. Dufour. Before, however, he could decide what to say, Dufour answered for him: 'He says from Monsieur Mangier, just by.'
'Strange!' said Mademoiselle Blaise. 'A clerk of Monsieur Derville's has been taken into custody this very morning on suspicion of having stolen this very note.'
Poor Bertrand! He felt as if seized with vertigo; and a stunned, chaotic sense of mortal peril shot through his brain, as Marie's solemn warning with respect to Derville rose up like a spectre before him.
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