The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-06-04


 De Lagors and De Clameran were fre- quently inr. violent altercation. Over just what they quarreled Fanferlot could not tell, as they spoke in their quarrels in English, language of which the valet-detective was ignorant. But one word of English Fanferlot did know--it was money--and often he had heard that word used between them. He mentioned this casually to M. Lecoq, who did not call him an ass-simply looked at him. which was enough. Pros per all this time was virtual prisoner in the Hotel of the Grand Archangel. M. Lecoq-or Verduret-warned him not to stir out of doors or to write any let ters. He was supposed to have fled the country and to be in America Hay ing collected all the data which he could in Paris, Lacoq suddenly disap- peared. Prosper felt that he was in the meshes of a net-the detective would not tell him all that was going on he felt that he should know what was transpiring with regard ito that which so vitally related to him. Lecoq | lldu tO tGll illlIi llittI llt Wohid yct SS
 tablish his innocence. He told him the story of 'Nina's life, which Prosper re- ceived with great surprise And Caldas did not take revenge upon me?" he said. No" the detective had replied, fate did that for him. He will never injure you" Prosper seemed to be liv- ing in "a world of dreams and mys- teries He tried to puzzle out some of the problems for himself He came to lover of Mme. Fauvel Lecoq told him that he should yet marry Madeleine. But the weeks passed rapidly and to Prosper it seemed as if no progress had been made.
 | He was in this state of mind when 1 Lecoq disappeared. In spite of the I warning of the detective Prosper, in the absence of Lecoq, took a stroll out upon | the streets, and read in a paper picked 1 up in a cafe that Madeleine was about to be married to the Marquis Louis de l Clameran In a rage he wrote an l anonymous letter to M. Fauvel telling him to watch his wife and intimatins that Raoul was her lover. No sooner had he posted this letter than he re- pented the act--but it was too late. The next day Lecoq appeared again at the Hotel of the Grand Archangel. A visit he had made to Provence and England had resulted in the following story, which he had Jotted down. and which he now read off to Prosper;
 The Chateau de Clameran stood on the left bank of the Rhone, about six miles above Tara scon. There had lived the old Marquis, noble of ruined fortunes but of proud and chivalrous spirit with his two sons, Gaston and Louis. On the pp- posite bank of the, river was the estate of Verberie, where lived the Countess de la Verberie and her young and beautiful daughter, Valentine. The castle of La verberie was small and the estate linn tied. The Countess was sorely oppressed by poverty. Between the families of De Clameran and De La Verberie there ex- isted feud of centuries standing-a feud so old that no one could tell just exactly what it was all about. But the two fam flies hated each other harder probably for this reason. Gaston had fallen in love with Valentine de la verberies and used to swim the Rhone to meet her.
 They had fixed a date for their mar riage, which they had decided must take
 place in spite of the anger which they
 knew it would arouse in their respective
 families, when an incident occurred which
 changed the destinies of their lives. One ] night, the Rhone being so swollen by the 1 spring rains that Gaston thought it i'm
 prudent to try and swim it, he went tc
 keep his secret tryst by way of the bridge
 which crossed the river, in the neighbor-