precaution; but having started on this course, he would not be easy
until he had destroyed all traces of himself in such a way that Madame
Dammauville would never be able to find the man that she had seen so
clearly under Caffie's lamp.

Precisely because he was not vain and had no pretension to beauty, he
had escaped the photograph mania. Once only he had been photographed
in spite of himself, simply to oblige a classmate who had abandoned
medicine for photography.

But now this once was too much, for there was danger that this portrait
taken three years before, and showing him with the hair and beard that
he wished to suppress, might be discovered. Without doubt there were few
chances that a copy of it would be seen by Madame Dammauville; but if
there existed only one against a hundred thousand, he must arrange it so
that he need have no fear.

He had had a dozen copies of this photograph, but as his relatives were
few, he kept the majority of them. One he sent to his mother, who was
living at that time; another went to the priest of his village, and
later he had given one to Phillis. He must, then, have nine in his
possession. He found them and burned them immediately.

Of the three that remained, only one might testify against him, the one
belonging to Phillis. But it would be easy for him to get it again on
inventing some pretext, while as to the others, truly he had nothing to
fear.

The real danger might come from the photographer, who perhaps had some
of the photographs, and who undoubtedly preserved the negative. This was
his first errand the next day.

On entering the studio of this friend, he experienced a disagreeable
feeling, which troubled him and made him uneasy; he had not given his
name, and counting on the change made by the cutting of his hair and
beard, he said to himself that his friend, who had not seen him for a
long time, certainly would not recognize him.

He had taken but a few steps, his hat in his hand, like a stranger who
is about to accost another, when the photographer came toward him with
outstretched hand, and a friendly smile on his face.

"You, my dear friend! What good fortune is worth the pleasure of your
visit tome? Can I be useful to you in any way?"

"You recognize me, then?"

"What! Do I recognize you? Do you ask that because you have cut
your hair and beard? Certainly it changes you and gives you a new
physiognomy; but I should be unworthy of my business if, by a dif