such fearful suffering that the clerks jumped up from their desks, and ran toward him. He almost dropped into their arms; he was sick and faint, and fell into a chair.
His companions surrounded him, and begged him to explain himself.
“Robbed?” they said; “where, how, by whom?”
Gradually, Prosper recovered himself.
“All the money I had in the safe,” he said, “has been stolen.”
“All?”
“Yes, all; three packages, each containing one hundred notes of a thousand francs, and one package of fifty thousand. The four packages were wrapped in a sheet of paper, and tied together.”
With the rapidity of lightning, the news of the robbery spread throughout the banking-house, and the room was soon filled with curious listeners.
“Tell us, Prosper,” said young Cavaillon, “did you find the safe broken open?”
“No; it is just as I left it.”
“Well then, how, why——”
“Yesterday I put three hundred and fifty thousand francs in the safe; and this morning they are gone.”
All were silent except one old clerk, who did not seem to share the general consternation.
“Don’t distress yourself, M. Bertomy,” he said: “perhaps the chief disposed of the money.”
The unhappy cashier started up with a look of relief; he eagerly caught at the idea.
“Yes!” he exclaimed, “you are right: the chief must have taken it.”
But, after thinking a few minutes, he said in a tone of deep discouragement:
“No, that is impossible. During the five years that I have had charge of the safe, M. Fauvel has never opened it except in my presence. Several times he has needed money, and has either waited until I came, or sent for me, rather than touch it in my absence.”
“Well,” said Cavaillon, “before despairing, let us ascertain.”
But a messenger had already informed M. Fauvel of the disaster.
As Cavaillon was about to go in quest of him, he entered the room.
M. Andre Fauvel appeared to be a man of fifty, inclined to corpulency, of medium height, with iron-gray hair; and, like all hard workers, he had a slight stoop.
Never did he by a single action belie the kindly expression of his face.
He had a frank air, a lively, intelligent eye, and large, red lips.
Born in the neighborhood of Aix, he betrayed, when animated, a slight Provencal accent that gave a peculiar flavor to his genial humor.
The news of the robbery had extremely agitated him, for his usually florid face was now quite pale.
“What is this I hear? what has happened?” he said to the clerks, who respectfully stood aside when he entered the room.
The sound of M. Fauvel’s voice inspired the cashier with the factitious energy of a great crisis. The dreaded and decisive moment had come; he arose, and advanced toward his chief.
“Monsieur,” he began, “having, as you know, a payment to make this morning, I yesterday drew from the Bank of France three hundred and fifty thousand francs.”
“Why yesterday, monsieur?” interrupted the banker. “I think I have a hundred times ordered you to wait until the day of the payment.”
“I know it, monsieur, and I did wrong to disobey you. But the evil is done. Yesterday evening I locked the money up: it has disappeared, and yet the safe has not been broken open.”
“You must be mad!” exclaimed M. Fauvel: “you are dreaming!”
These few words destroyed all hope; but the very horror of the situation gave Prosper, not the coolness of a matured resolution, but that sort of stupid, stolid indifference which often results from unexpected catastrophes.
It was with apparent calmness that he replied:
“I am not mad; neither, unfortunately, am I dreaming: I am simply telling the truth.”
This tranquillity at such a moment appeared to exasperate M. Fauvel. He seized Prosper by the arm, and shook him roughly.
“Speak!” he cried out. “Speak! who do you pretend to say opened the safe? Answer me!”
“I cannot say.”
“No one but you and I knew the secret word. No one but you and myself had keys.”
This was a formal accusation; at least, all the auditors present so understood it.
Yet Prosper’s strange calmness never left him for an instant. He quietly released himself from M. Fauvel’s grasp, and very slowly said:
“In other words, monsieur, I am the only person who could have taken this money.”
“Unhappy wretch!”
Prosper drew himself to his full height, and, looking M. Fauvel full in the face, added:
“Or you!”
The banker made a threatening gesture; and there is no knowing what would have happened if they had not been interrupted by loud and angry voices at the entry-door.
A man insisted upon entering in spite of the protestations of the errand-boys, and succeeded in forcing his way in. It was M. de Clameran.
The clerks stood looking on, bewildered and motionless. The silence was profound, solemn.
It was easy to see that some terrible question, a question of life or death, was being weighed by all these men.
The iron-founder did not appear to observe anything unusual. He advanced, and without lifting his hat said, in the same impertinent tone:
“It is after ten o’clock, gentlemen.”
No one answered; and M. de Clameran was about to continue, when, turning around, he for the first time saw the banker, and walking up to him said:
“Well, monsieur, I congratulate myself upon finding you in at last. I have been here once before this morning, and found the cash-room not opened, the cashier not arrived, and you absent.”
“You are mistaken, monsieur, I was in my office.”
“At any rate, I was told you were out; that gentleman over there assured me of the fact.”
And the iron-founder pointed out Cavaillon.
“However, that is of little importance,” he went on to say. “I return, and this time not only the cash-room is closed, but I am refused admittance to the banking-house, and find myself compelled
