He evidently recognised the effects of one of those new explosives which he himself had studied, almost created.

In the present case, however, he must have been puzzled, for there were characteristic signs and traces the significance of which escaped him.
"And so," he at last made up his mind to ask, carried away by professional curiosity, "and so it was a laboratory explosion which put you in this nice condition?
What devilish powder were you concocting then ?" Guillaume, ever since he had seen Bertheroy thus studying his injury, had, in spite of his sufferings, given marked signs of annoyance and agitation.

And as if the real secret which he wished to keep lay precisely in the question now put to him, in that powder, the first experiment with which had thus injured him, he replied with an air of restrained ardour, and a straight frank glance: "Pray do not question me, master.

I cannot answer you.

You have, I know, sufficient nobility of nature to nurse me and care for me without exacting a confession." "Oh! certainly, my friend," exclaimed Bertheroy; "keep your secret.