The features of the Sauveterre lawyer grew dark again, much quicker than
they had brightened up just now.

"Ah!" he said,--"a tale, ah!"

"I was scarcely of age," resumed Jacques, "when I wanted to purchase
this house. I dreaded difficulties. I was afraid my father might hear
of it; in fine, I wanted to be as prudent as the countess was. I asked,
therefore, one of my English friends, Sir Francis Burnett, to purchase
it in his name. He agreed; and he handed me, with the necessary bills of
sale, also a paper in which he acknowledged my right as proprietor."

"But then"--

"Oh! wait a moment. I did not take these papers to my rooms in my
father's house. I put them into a drawer of a bureau in my house at
Passy. When the war broke out, I forgot them. I had left Paris before
the siege began, you know, being in command of a company of volunteers
from this department. During the two sieges, my house was successively
occupied by the National Guards, the soldiers of the Commune, and the
regular troops. When I got back there, I found the four walls pierced
with holes by the shells; but all the furniture had disappeared, and
with it the papers."

"And Sir Francis Burnett?"

"He left France at the beginning of the invasion; and I do not know
what has become of him. Two friends of his in England, to whom I wrote,
replied,--the one that he was probably in Australia; the other that he
was dead."