ILY!' MURMURED A VOICE" _Frontispiece_
"SLOWLY DANCING AND WHIRLING AROUND ME" 26
"THEN LEFT ME" 126
"TOUCHED WITH HIS LIPS THROUGH THE GRATING" 167
"THE SKELETON STAGGERED AT FIRST" 243

THE MYSTERIES OF PARIS.

CHAPTER I.

THE PRESENTATION.

A few days after the murder of Madame Seraphin, the death of the
Chouette, and the arrest of the gang of desperadoes taken by surprise at
Bras-Rouge's house, Rodolph paid another visit to the house in the Rue
du Temple.

We have already observed that, with the view of practising artifice for
artifice with Jacques Ferrand, discovering his hidden crimes, obliging
him to repair them, and inflicting condign punishment should the guilty
wretch, either by skill or hypocrisy, continue to evade the just
punishment of the laws, Rodolph had sent to fetch from one of the
prisons in Germany a young and beautiful creole, the unworthy wife of
the negro David. This female, lovely in person as depraved in mind, as
fascinating as dangerous, had reached Paris the preceding evening, and
had received the most minute instructions from Baron de Grauen.

The reader will recollect that in the last interview between Rodolph and
Madame Pipelet, the latter having very cleverly managed to propose
Cecily to Madame Seraphin, as a servant to the notary in place of Louise
Morel, her proposition had been so well received that the _femme de
charge_ had promised to speak to Jacques Ferrand on the subject; and
this she had done, in terms most flattering to Cecily, the very morning
of the day on which she (Madame Seraphin) had been drowned at the Isle
du Ravageur.

The motive for Rodolph's visit was, therefore, to inquire the result of
Cecily's introduction. To his great astonishment, he found, on entering
the lodge, that although eleven o'clock in the morning had struck by all
the neighbouring dials, Pipelet had not yet risen, while Anastasie was
standing beside his bed, offering him some sort of drink.

As Alfred, whose forehead and eyes were entirely concealed beneath his
huge cotton nightcap, did not reply to his wife's inquiries, she
concluded he slept, and therefore closed the curtains of his bed.
Turning around, she perceived Rodolph, and, as usual, gave him a
military salute, by lifting the back of her left hand up to her wig.

"Ah, my king of lodgers! Service to you! How are y