events, our crime would have been unpunished, thanks to me."

"Thanks to you?"

"Yes; when we had blown this man's brains out, you wished simply to
counterfeit his signature, and to write his sister that, ruined completely,
he had killed himself from despair. You thought that you would make a great
stroke of policy by not speaking in this letter of the deposit he had
confided to you. It was absurd. This deposit being known to his sister, she
would have unquestionably reclaimed it. It was necessary, then, on the
contrary, to mention it as we did, in order that, if there were any
suspicions of the reality of the suicide, you might be the last person to
be suspected. Then what happened? The suicide was believed; from your
reputation for probity, you were enabled to deny the deposit, and it was
thought that the brother killed himself after having dissipated the fortune
of his sister."

"But what matters all this at present? The crime is discovered."

"And thanks to whom? Was it my fault if my letter was a double-edged sword,
cutting both ways? How could you be so weak, so stupid, as to deliver such
a terrible weapon to this infernal Cecily?"

"Hush--do not pronounce that name!" cried Jacques Ferrand, with a frightful
expression.

"So be it; I do not wish to make you epileptic. You will see that, in
guarding against ordinary justice, our mutual precautions were sufficient;
but the extraordinary justice of him who holds us both in his power defied
all calculations."