[Illustration: "AND NOW FOR HIS POCKETS!" I SAID, HARDENING MY HEART.]
"That," I said, handing them to Giraud, "is the half of your fortune. If we have luck we shall find the remainder in Sander's hands at Genoa."
And Alphonse Giraud must needs embrace me, hurting my shoulder most infernally, and pouring out a rapid torrent of apology and self-recrimination.
"I listened when it was hinted to me that you were not honest," he cried, "that you were not seeking the money at all, or that you had already recovered it! I have watched you as if you were a thief--Mon Dieu, what a scoundrel I have been."
"At all events you have the money now."
"Yes." He paused, fingering the papers, while he thoughtfully looked down into the valley. "Yes, d**k--and it cannot buy me what I want."
Thus we are, a
