"It is the truth."

And, despite his grief, he had almost a triumphant air.

His old sister could not believe it. Such a refined, polite person, who
had received her with so much cordiality!--How could any one imagine such
a thing?

"I have proofs," said Sigismond Planus.

Thereupon he told her how Pere Achille had met Sidonie and Georges one
night at eleven o'clock, just as they entered a small furnished lodging-
house in the Montmartre quarter; and he was a man who never lied. They
had known him for a long while. Besides, others had met them. Nothing
else was talked about at the factory. Risler alone suspected nothing.

"But it is your duty to tell him," declared Mademoiselle Planus.

The cashier's face assumed a grave expression.

"It is a very delicate matter. In the first place, who knows whether he
would believe me? There are blind men so blind that--And then,
by interfering between the two partners, I risk the loss of my place.
Oh! the women--the women! When I think how happy Risler might have been.
When I sent for him to come to Paris with his brother, he hadn't a sou;
and to-day he is at the head of one of the first houses in Paris. Do you
suppose that he would be content with that? Oh! no, of course not!
Monsieur must marry. As if any one needed to marry! And, worse yet, he
marries a Parisian woman, one of those frowsy-haired chits that are the
ruin of an honest house, when he had at his hand a fine girl, of almost