Delobelle?"

"Oh! I knew you at once, Monsieur Frantz," said Desiree, very calmly, in
a cold, sedate tone.

"Merciful heavens! it's Monsieur Frantz."

Quickly Mamma Delobelle runs to the lamp, lights it, and closes the
window.

"What! it is you, is it, my dear Frantz?" How coolly she says it, the
little rascal! "I knew you at once." Ah, the little iceberg! She will
always be the same.

A veritable little iceberg, in very truth. She is very pale, and her
hand as it lies in Frantz's is white and cold.

She seems to him improved, even more refined than before. He seems to
her superb, as always, with a melancholy, weary expression in the depths
of his eyes, which makes him more of a man than when he went away.

His weariness is due to his hurried journey, undertaken immediately on
his receipt of Sigismond's letter. Spurred on by the word dishonor, he
had started instantly, without awaiting his leave of absence, risking
his place and his future prospects; and, hurrying from steamships to
railways, he had not stopped until he reached Paris. Reason enough for
being weary, especially when one has travelled in eager haste to reach
one's destination, and when one's mind has been continually beset by
impatient thoughts, making the journey ten times over in incessant doubt
and fear and perplexity.

His melancholy began further back. It began on the day when the woman he
loved refused to marry him, to become, six months later, the wife of his
brother; two terrible blows in close succession, the second even more
painful than the first. It is true that, before entering into that
marriage, Risler had written to him to ask his permission to be happy,
and had written in such touching, affectionate terms that the violence
of the blow was somewhat diminished; and then, in due time, life in a
strange country, hard work, and long journeys had softened his grief.
Now only a vast background of melancholy remains; unless, indeed, the
hatred and wrath by which he is animated at this moment against the
woman who is dishonoring his brother may be a remnant of his former
love.

But no! Frantz Risler thinks only of avenging the honor of the Rislers.
He comes not as a lover, but as a judge; and Sidonie may well look to
herself.

The judge had gone straight to the factory on leaving the train, relying
upon the surprise, the unexpectedness, of his arrival to disclose to him
at a glance what was taking place.

Unluckily he had found no on