"An ingenious attempt to shift the guilt; but it will not serve. We
know better."

"I am prepared to swear it was Ledantec. Why should I attack the
Baron? I owed him no grudge."

"Why? I will tell you. For some time past, as I have reminded you,
your funds have been running low, fortune has been against you at the
tables, and you could not correct it at the Hôtel Paradis as you do
with less clever players--"

"You are taking an unfair advantage of your position, Monsieur le
Juge. Any one else who dared accuse me of cheating--"

"Bah! no heroics. You could not correct fortune, I say; yet money you
must have. The hotel-keeper was pressing for his long-unpaid account.
Madame, your smart wife, was dissatisfied; she made you scenes because
you refused her money; in return, you ill-used her."

"It is false! My wife has always received proper consideration at my
hands."

"You ill-used her, ill-treated her; we have it from herself."

"Do you know, then, where she is?" interrupted Gascoigne, with so
much eagerness that it was plain he had taken his wife's defection
greatly to heart. "Why has she left me? With whom? I have always
suspected that villain Ledantec; he is an arch scoundrel, a very
devil!"