f
him crouched two fellows, one of whom bore in his hand a black cloth.

"Oh, why does not Monsieur Martin come?" said Henriette to herself
softly, with a little gesture of half-despair.

"I am your cousin Martin!" said the man, advancing upon them with a
smirk that was like a leer.

Henriette involuntarily drew back, withdrawing Louise a few steps with
her. Relief and fear of the strange "cousin" struggled within her. The
man laid a hand on the elder girl's arm and at the same time signalled
the ruffians. A sudden impulse moved Henriette to wrench herself
free.

In a twinkling the three were upon her. While the burly leader tore
away her grasp of the blind Louise, the fellow with the cloth threw it
over her face and shoulders, stifling her screams.

Not a passer-by in sight!

Fiercely Henriette struggled, twice lifting the cloth from her face,
and fiercely Louise sought to twine herself around the body of her
lovely guide and protector. But the big man again had thrown the blind
girl off, and the fellows, having tied the black cloth, lifted
Henriette between them and carried her into a waiting fiacre.

"We've got her safe now, La Fleur," said the kidnappers.

"Drive your hardest to Bel-Air, the Marquis's fete begins at nine
o'clock!" said the villain addressed, who was none other than the
famous nobleman's pander....

What cared the Marquis and La Fleur about the blind one's misfortunes.
As La Fleur had said:

"Never fear--blindness is ever a good stock in trade. She'll find her
career--in the streets of Paris!"

Louise stopped, and listened for the retreating footsteps. The noise
of the kidnappers' melee was quite stilled. Instead, the diminishing
sound of hoofbeats and crunching wheels woke the echoes of the silent
street; mingled with it--perhaps not even actually, but the memory of
an earlier outcry--the muffled cry, "Louise! Louise!"

Louise listened again, but no familiar sound met her ear--only the
rushing of the water, or the footsteps of some pedestrian in the
distance.

"I hear nothing," she said, in a terrified whisper. Hoping against
hope, and in a voice trembling with fear, she spoke as it were to the
empty winds:

"Henriette! Speak to me, speak one word. Answer me, Henriette!" No
answer, no reply!

"Louise!" sounded faintly on the far-off wind, or perhaps her poor
brain conjured it. The blind girl knew now that her sister was beyond
reach, and in the power of cruel men who knew no mer