were dazzled by this vision
of wealth.

"The second time I went to the count's house," resumed Madame
Vantrasson, "I didn't see him, but he sent me a thousand francs. The
third and last time they gave me twenty francs at the door, and told me
that the count had gone on a journey. I understood that I could hope for
no further help from him. Besides, all the servants had been changed.
One morning, without any apparent reason, M. de Chalusse dismissed all
the old servants, so they told me. He even sent away the concierge and
the housekeeper."

"Why didn't you apply to his wife?"

"M. de Chalusse isn't married. He never has been married."

From the expression of solicitude upon her guest's features, Madame
Vantrasson supposed he was racking his brain to discover some mode of
escape from her present difficulties. "If I were in your place," he
said, "I should try to interest his relatives and family in my case----"

"The count has no relatives."

"Impossible!"

"He hasn't, indeed. During the ten years I was in his service, I heard
him say more than a dozen times that he alone was left of all his
family--that all the others were dead. People pretend that this is the
reason why he is so immensely rich."

M. Fortunat's interest was no longer assumed; he was rapidly approaching
the real object of his visit. "No relatives!" he muttered. "Who, then,
will inherit his millions when he dies?"

Madame Vantrasson jerked her head. "Who can say?" she replied.
"Everything will go to the government, probably, unless---- But no,
that's impossible."

"What's impossible?"

"Nothing. I was thinking of the count's sister, Mademoiselle Hermine."

"His sister! Why, you said just now that he had no relatives."

"It's the same as if he hadn't; no one knows what has become of her,
poor creature! Some say that she married; others declare that she died.
It's quite a romance."

M. Isidore Fortunat was literally upon the rack; and to make his
sufferings still more horrible, he dared not ask any direct question,
nor allow his curiosity to become manifest, for fear of alarming the
woman. "Let me see," said he; "I think--I am sure that I have heard--or
that I have read--I cannot say which--some story about a Mademoiselle de
Chalusse. It was something terrible, wasn't it?"

"Terrible, indeed. But what I was speaking of happened a long time
ago--twenty-five or twenty-six years ago, at the very least. I was still
in my own part of the count