no one ever saw--"

"Pardon me, monsieur," interrupted Cambray, "but it is not the custom
for French gentlemen to spy out or chatter about secrets which relate to
the fair sex."

"I am not talking about the sort of female you refer to, monsieur, but
about a child--a girl of perhaps twelve years."

"How, pray, can one determine the age of a lady whom no one has seen?"

"Certain telltale circumstances give one a clue," retorted De Fervlans.
"Why, for instance, do you keep a doll in your rooms?"

"A doll? I play with it myself sometimes! I am a queer old fellow with
peculiar tastes."

"Very good; we will allow that you are telling the truth. What have you
to say to the fact that you took to your apartment yesterday evening a
stray child, and an hour later your friend came out of the house with
another child, wrapped in the shawl which had enveloped the lost child
when you found her--"

"Have they been overtaken?" hastily interrupted Cambray, forgetting
himself.

"No, they have not--more 's the pity!" returned the marquis. "My
detective was not clever enough to perceive the difference between the
eight-year-old girl who was carried to your apartments at ten o'clock,
and the twelve-year-old little maid whom your friend brought downstairs
at eleven, pretending that he was going in search of the lost child's
mother. Besides, everything conspired to aid your friend to escape. He
was too cunning for us, and got such a start of his pursuers that there
was no use trying to follow him. We do not even know in what direction
he has gone."

Cambray repressed the sigh of relief which would have lightened his
heart, and forced himself to say indifferently:

"Neither the young man nor the child concern me. It is his own family
affair, in which I never meddled."

"That is a move I cannot allow, M. Cambray!" sharply responded the
marquis. "There are proofs that you are perfectly familiar with his
affairs."

Again Cambray smiled scornfully.

"You have evidently searched my lodgings."

"We have done our duty, monsieur. We even tore up the floors, broke your
furniture and ornaments,--for which we apologize,--and found nothing
suspicious. Notwithstanding this, however, we know very well that you
received a letter yesterday warning you of approaching danger. We know
very well that you and your friend traced out the route of his flight;
we have a witness who listened to your plans, and who fitted together
the scraps of the tor