"Here is your answer."

She could not repress a little cry of delight, and rapidly touched the
letter with her lips, repeating,--

"Now we are safe, we are safe!"

M. de Chandore smiled at the happiness of his granddaughter.

"But, Miss Hypocrite," he said, "it seems you had great secrets to
communicate to M. de Boiscoran, since you resorted to cipher, like arch
conspirators. M. Folgat and I tried to read it; but it was all Greek to
us."

Now only the young lady remembered M. Folgat's presence, and, blushing
deeply, she said,--

"Latterly Jacques and I had been discussing the various methods to which
people resort who wish to carry on a secret correspondence: this led
him to teach me one of the ways. Two correspondents choose any book they
like, and each takes a copy of the same edition. The writer looks in his
volume for the words he wants, and numbers them; his correspondent
finds them by the aid of these numbers. Thus, in Jacques's letters, the
numbers followed by a colon refer to the pages, and the others to the
order in which the words come."

"Ah, ah!" said Grandpapa Chandore, "I might have looked a long time."

"It is a very simple method," replied Dionysia, "very well known,
and still quite safe. How could an outsider guess what book the