glittered with excitement. Jacintha gave a scream of joy; "Our luck is
turned," she cried, superstitiously. Meanwhile, Josephine had found a
slip of paper close to the purse. She opened it with nimble fingers;
it contained one line in a hand like that of a copying clerk: FROM A
FRIEND: IN PART PAYMENT OF A GREAT DEBT.

Keen, piquant curiosity now took the place of surprise. Who could it
be? The baroness's suspicion fell at once on Dr. Aubertin. But Rose
maintained he had not ten gold pieces in the world. The baroness
appealed to Josephine. She only blushed in an extraordinary way, and
said nothing. They puzzled, and puzzled, and were as much in the dark as
ever, when lo! one of the suspected parties delivered himself into
the hands of justice with ludicrous simplicity. It happened to be Dr.
Aubertin's hour of out-a-door study; and he came mooning along, buried
in a book, and walked slowly into the group--started, made a slight
apology, and was mooning off, lost in his book again. Then the
baroness, who had eyed him with grim suspicion all the time, said with
well-affected nonchalance, "Doctor, you dropped your purse; we have just
picked it up." And she handed it to him. "Thank you, madame," said he,
and took it quietly without looking at it, put it in his pocket,
and retired, with his soul in his book. They stared comically at one
another, and at this cool hand. "It's no more his than it's mine," said
Jacintha, bluntly. Rose darted after the absorbed student, and took
him captive. "Now, doctor," she cried, "be pleased to come out of the
clouds." And with the word she whipped the purse out of his coat pocket,
and holding it right up before his eye, insisted on his telling her
whether that was his purse or not, money and all. Thus adjured, he
disowned the property mighty coolly, for a retired physician, who had
just pocketed it.