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friendly Marguerite again assisted me. She passed behind the chairs of her step-sons, stopped for a moment opposite to me, closed her eyes, and reclined her head upon her shoulder. This hint immediately dispelled my incertitude. It told me, that I ought to imitate the baroness, and pretend that the liquor had taken its full effect upon me. I did so, and in a few minutes seemed perfectly overcome with slumber.
"So!" cried Baptiste, as I fell back in my chair, "at last he sleeps! I began to think that he had scented our design, and that we should have been forced to dispatch him at all events."
"And why not dispatch him at all events?" enquired the ferocious Jacques: "why leave him the possibility of betraying our secret? Marguerite, give me one of my pistols: a single touch of the trigger will finish him at once."
"And supposing," rejoined the father, "supposing that our friends should not arrive to night, a pretty figure we should makewhen
