t
for so long, that he should know now the whole truth.

"After that, things moved rapidly. The girl was as near her own mistress
as a child of her age could be. She was lonely and the young man proved
a delightful companion. He had many attractive gifts, and he knew how to
make use of them. All the time he made love to her. For a time she
resisted, but she had very little chance. She was just at the age when
all girls are more or less fools. In the end she consented to a secret
marriage. Afterwards he was to take her to his family. But that time
never came.

"They were married at eleven o'clock one morning, and went afterwards to
a cafe for dejeuner. The young man that day was ill at ease and nervous.
He kept looking about him as though he was afraid of being followed. He
spoke vaguely of danger from the anger of his noble relations. They were
scarcely seated at luncheon before a man came quietly into the place and
whispered a few words in his ear. Whatever those few words were, the
young man went suddenly pale and called for his hat and stick. He wrote
an address on a piece of paper and gave it to the girl. He begged her to
follow him in an hour--he would introduce her then to his friends. And
he left her alone. The girl was troubled and uneasy. He had gone off
without even paying for the luncheon. He had the air of a desperate man.
She began to realize what she had done.

"She was preparing to depart when an Englishman, who had been
lunching at the other end of the room, came over, and, with a word
of apology, sat down by her side. He saw that she was young, and a
fellow-countryman, and he told her very gravely that he was sure she
could not be aware of the character of the man with whom she had been
lunching. Her eyes grew wide open with horror. The man, he said, was the
illegitimate son of a French nobleman, and his mother had been married
to a guide--her guide! He had perhaps the worst character of any man in
Paris. He had been tried for murder, imprisoned for forgery, and he was
now suspected of being the leader of a band of desperate criminals who
were dreaded all over Paris. This and other things he told her of the
man whom she had just married. The girl listened as though turned to
stone, with the piece of paper which he had given her crumpled up in her
hands. Then the police came. They asked her questions. She pretended at
first to know nothing. At last she addressed the commissionary. If she
gave him the