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began to work right through the story that I learned what a task I had set myself. For, you see, I could not get a starting-point. If the woman had asked us down there to skin us, how came it that Marmontel always kept the bank? He was not her confederate, that I was ready to swear. And how did this supposition fit in with the little box in the park and a brother who took the girl in his arms just like a soldier cuddling a housemaid? It didn't fit anyhow, I said. Look at it as you would, there was no light through it. Of one thing only was I sure—Mme. Pauline was no sister to the Comte de Faugère. Yet how did that concern our fortunes?
