"Ah! it's you, Duthil," said the Baron, rising. "Have you read this?" And
he showed the new comer the "Voix du Peuple," which he was folding up to
replace it in his pocket.

"Why yes, I've read it. It's amazing. How can Sagnier have got hold of
the list of names? Has there been some traitor?"

The Baron looked at his companion quietly, amused by his secret anguish.
Duthil, the son of a notary of Angouleme, almost poor and very honest,
had been sent to Paris as deputy for that town whilst yet very young,
thanks to the high reputation of his father; and he there led a life of
pleasure and idleness, even as he had formerly done when a student.
However, his pleasant bachelor's quarters in the Rue de Suresnes, and his
success as a handsome man in the whirl of women among whom he lived, cost
him no little money; and gaily enough, devoid as he was of any moral
sense, he had already glided into all sorts of compromising and lowering
actions, like a light-headed, superior man, a charming, thoughtless
fellow, who attached no importance whatever to such trifles.

"Bah!" said the Baron at last. "Has Sagnier even got a list? I doubt it,
for there was none; Hunter wasn't so foolish as to draw one up. And then,
too, it was merely an ordinary affair; nothing more was done than is
always done in such matters of business."

Duthil, who for the first time in his life had felt anxious, listened
like one that needs to be reassured. "Quite so, eh?" he exclaimed.
"That's what I thought. There isn't a cat to be whipped in the whole
affair."

He tried to laugh as usual, and no longer exactly knew how it was that he