ness in life is
with the underworld. He even caused a guarded paragraph to appear in
certain papers, which spoke temperately of a genius in hiding, for
whom fame was ripe whenever he should choose to claim it. But Paris
at that moment was thrilled by a series of murders by apaches, and
the notice passed unremarked.

In the end, therefore, Rufin restored himself to his work, richer by
a memory, poorer by a failure. Not till then came the last accident
in the chain of accidents by which the matter had presented itself to
him.

Some detail of quite trivial business took him to see an official at
the Palais de Justice, In the great Salle des Pas Perdus there was,
as always, a crowd of folk, jostling, fidgeting, making a clamor of
mixed voices. He did not visit it often enough to know that the crowd
was larger than usual and strongly leavened with an element of
furtive shabby men and desperate calm women. He found his official
and disposed of his affair, and the official, who was willing enough
to be seen in the company of a man of Rufin's position, rose politely
to see him forth, and walked with him into the noisy hall.

"You are not often here, Monsieur Rufin?" he suggested. "And yet, as
you see, here is much matter for an artist. These faces, eh? All the
brigands of Paris are here to-day. In there"--and he pointed to one
of the many doors--"the trial is proceeding of those apaches."

"A great occasion, no doubt," said Rufin. He looked casually towards
the door which his companion indicated. "Of course I have read of the
matter in the newspapers, but----"

He ceased speaking abruptly. A movement in the crowd between him and
the door had let him see, for a space of seconds, a girl who leaned
against the wall, strained and pale, as though waiting in a patient
agony for news, for tidings of the fates that were being decided
within. From the moment his eyes rested on her he was sure; there was
no possibility of a mistake; it was the girl whose face, reproduced,
interpreted, and immortalized, looked forth from the canvas he had
seen in the Montmartre tenement.

"Two of them held the gendarme, while the third cut his throat with
his own sword. A grotesque touch, that--vous ne trouvez pas? tres
fort!"--the official was remarking when Rufin took him by the arm.

"That girl," he said. "You see her?--against the wall there. I cannot
talk with her in this crowd, and I must talk to her at once. Where is
there some quiet Place