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Book, page 211 / 336 time, of a positive crime, forbidden by the laws and punishable with the galleys. And who can say how many crimes the Marquis de Valorsay had committed since the day he provided his accomplice, the Viscount de Coralth, with those fatal cards? And apart from this there was something extremely appalling in the position of this ruined millionaire, who was contending desperately against his creditors for the vain appearance of splendor, with the despairing energy of a ship-wrecked mariner struggling for the possession of a floating spar. Had he not confessed to M. Fortunat that he had suffered the tortures of the damned in his struggle to maintain a show of wealth, while he was often without a penny in his pocket, and was ever subject to the pitiless surveillance of thirty servants? His agony, when he thought of his precarious condition, could only be compared to that of a miner, who, while ascending from the bowels of the earth, finds that the rope, upon which his life depends, is slowly parting strand by strand, and who asks himself, in terror, if the few threads that still remain unsevered will be strong enough to raise him to the mouth of the pit. However, the moment which M. de Valorsay had asked for had lengthened into a quarter of an hour, and he had not yet finished his work. "What the devil is he doing?" wondered Pascal, who was following his enemy's slightest movement with eager curiosity. Countless sporting newspapers were strewn over the table, the chairs, and the floor around the marquis, who took them up one after another, glanced rapidly through their columns, and threw them on the floor again. or placed them on a pile before him, first marking certain passages with a red pencil. At last, probably fearing that Pascal was growing impatient, he looked up and said: "I am really very sorry to keep you waiting so long, but some one is waiting for this work to be completed." "Oh! pray continue, Monsieur le Marquis," interrupted Pascal. "Strange to say, I have a little leisure at my command just now." The marquis seemed to feel that it was necessary to make some
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