n! Evidently one of the most frequent guests of my delicate
Francine was the interpreter of _Cosmos_ in Strasburg, the
white-bearded mystifier of the champagne-cellar, the finest
singing-voice in Epernay.

[Illustration: THE CHURCHYARD LOVER.]

Toward ten o'clock, as I paced the little grove called the Oak Wood,
I saw at the miniature lake four persons, who were regaining the bank
after trying to detach the little boat moored by the shore. They were
just the four from our social table with whom I best agreed. I joined
the party, and, hooking now a friendly arm to the elbow of one, now
to that of another, I soon obtained all they had to communicate on
the subject which occupied my mind. Each knew Fortnoye intimately: the
result of my quadratic amounted to the following:

_First_. Fortnoye, educated at the Polytechnic School in Paris, is a
man of grave character and profound learning.

_Second_. Fortnoye is a roysterer, latterly occupied in extending the
connection of a champagne-house at Epernay. He is a Bohemian, even
a poet: he can rhyme, but strictly in the interests of commerce--he
composes only drinking-songs.

_Third_. Fortnoye is an exploded speculator, dismissed from the French
Board: obliged to beat a retreat to Belgium, he soon found himself in
Baden, where he had good luck at the green table shortly before the
war.

_Fourth, and last_. (This was from the man of Wyoming.) Fortnoye
only retreated to Belgium as a refuge for his demagogic opinions. He
belongs to the innermost circle of the Commune and to all the French
and Italian secret associations. He is represented in the background
of several of Courbet's pictures. He has been everywhere: in Italy
he joined the society of the Mary Anne, where he met the celebrated
Lothair. This order has a branch called the Society of Pure
Illumination. If he has liberty to return into France, it is because
he is connected with the detective police.

The information, extensive as it was, did not altogether satisfy me. I
made little of the inconsistencies betrayed by the various counsels
of the Areopagus, but I closed the whole solemnity with one crucial
interrogatory: "What the dickens does Fortnoye come prowling around
Francine Joliet's house for?"

The answer was not calculated to please me: "She is young and
attractive: Fortnoye advanced the funds to set her up in the house."

But my morose thoughts were distracted by the scene around us. The
moon burst up abov