he coat, of an old-fashioned cut, and the trousers, showed
various clumsy darns. The buttons had evidently just been renewed. The
coat, buttoned to the chin, showed no linen; and the cravat, of a rusty
black, hid the greater part of a false collar. These clothes, worn for
many years, smelt of poverty. And yet the lofty air of this mysterious
old man, his gait, the thought that dwelt on his brow and was manifest
in his eyes, excluded the idea of pauperism. An observer would have
hesitated how to class him.

Monsieur Bernard seemed so absorbed that he might have been taken for
a teacher employed in that quarter of the city, or for some learned man
plunged in exacting and tyrannical meditation. Godefroid, in any case,
would have felt a curiosity which his present mission of benevolence
sharpened into powerful interest.

"Monsieur," continued the old man, "if I were sure that you are really
seeking silence and seclusion, I should say take those rooms near mine."
He raised his voice so that Madame Vauthier, who was now passing them,
could hear him. "Take those rooms. I am a father, monsieur. I have only
a daughter and a grandson to enable me to bear the miseries of life.
Now, my daughter needs silence and absolute tranquillity. All those
persons who, so far, have looked at the rooms you are now considering,
have listened to the reasons and the entreaties of a despairing father.
It was indifferent to them whether they lived in one house or another
of a quarter so deserted that plenty of lodgings can be had for a low
price. But I see in you a fixed determination, and I beg you, monsieur,
not to deceive me. Do you really desire a quiet life? If not, I shall be
forced to move and go beyond the barrier, and the removal may cost me my
daughter's life."

If the man could have wept, the tears would have covered his cheeks
while he spoke; as it was, they were, to use an expression now become
vulgar, "in his voice." He covered his forehead with his hand, which was
nothing but bones and muscle.

"What is your daughter's illness?" asked Godefroid, in a persuasive and
sympathetic voice.

"A terrible disease to which physicians give various names, but it has,
in truth, no name. My fortune is lost," he added, with one of those
despairing gestures made only by the wretched. "The little money that I
had,--for in 1830 I was cast from a high position,--in fact, all that I
possessed, was soon used by on my daughter's illness; her mother, t