lle entered the
obscure passage up which she had disappeared. Madame d'Harville,
however, had so far the start as to have entered the house previously.

Attracted by the most devouring curiosity, Madame Pipelet, with her
melancholy Alfred and her friend the oyster-woman, were huddled close
together on the sill at the lodge door. The staircase was so dark that a
person just emerging from the daylight into the gloom of the passage
could not discern a single step of it; and Madame d'Harville, agitated
and almost sinking with apprehension, found herself constrained to apply
to Madame Pipelet for further advice how to proceed, saying, in a low,
tremulous voice:

"Which way must I turn, madame, to find the staircase of the house?"

"Stop, if you please. Pray, whom do you want?"

"I wish to go to the apartments of M. Charles, madame."

"Monsieur who?" repeated the old woman, feigning not to have heard her,
but in reality to afford sufficient leisure to her husband and her
friend thoroughly to scrutinise the unhappy woman's countenance, even
through the folds of her thick veil.

"M. Charles, madame," repeated Clemence, in a low, trembling tone, and
bending down her head, so as to escape the rude and insolent examination
to which her features were subjected.

"Ah! M. Charles; very well; you should have spoken so that one could
hear you. Well, my pretty dear, if you want M. Charles,--and a
good-looking fellow he is as ever won a woman's heart,--go straight on,
and the door will stare you in the face. Eh! eh! eh!" laughed out the
old woman, shaking her fat sides with spiteful glee, "it seems he has
not waited for nothing this time. Success to love and love-makings, and
a merry end to it!"

The marquise, ready to sink with confusion, began slowly to grope her
way up the dingy staircase.

"I say," bawled out the old shell-fish woman, "our commandant knows what
he is about, don't he? Leave him alone to choose a pretty girl. His marm
is a regular swell, ain't she?"

Had it not been requisite for her to run the gauntlet of the trio who
occupied the entrance-door, Madame d'Harville, ready to sink with shame
and terror, would gladly have retraced her steps. She made another
effort, and at last reached the landing-place, where, to her unutterable
consternation and surprise, she saw Rodolph waiting, impatiently, her
arrival. Instantly flying to meet her, he hastily placed a purse in her
hand, saying, in a hurried manner:

"Yo