character battled tumultuously. In one moment he aspired to be generous
and restore to Lisette the evidence of her guilt; in the next he sank
to the base thought of displaying it to Pomponnet and breaking off the
match. The discovery fired his brain. No longer was he a nonentity, the
odd man out--chance had transformed him to the master of the situation.
Full well he knew that there would be no nuptials next day were
Pomponnet aware of his fiancee's perfidy; it needed but to go to him
and say, "Monsieur, my sense of duty compels me to inform you--." How
easy it would be! He laughed hysterically.

But Lisette would never pardon such a meanness--she would always
despise and hate him! He would have torn her from his rival's arms, it
was true, yet his own would still be empty. "Ah, Lisette, Lisette!"
groaned the wretched man; and, swept to evil by the force of passion,
he cudgelled his mind to devise some piece of trickery, some diabolical
artifice, by which the incriminating token might be placed in the
pastrycook's hands as if by accident.

And while he pondered--his "whole soul a chaos"--in that hour Pomponnet
entered to hire a dress-suit for his wedding!

Touquet raised his head, blanched to the lips.

"Regard," he said, with a forced calm terrible to behold; "here is a
suit that I have just acquired. Monsieur will observe that it is of the
most distinguished cut--quite in the latest fashion. I will whisper to
monsieur that it comes to me through the valet of the Comte de St. Nom-
la-Breteche-Foret-de-Marly." And, unseen by the guileless bridegroom,
he slipped the damning proof into a pocket of the trousers, where his
knowledge of the pastrycook's attitudes assured him that it was even