breuse
replied. "One would imagine that you were the guilty party yourself.
Pray, have done with your tragic airs! Hold on! here's the money! and
much good may it do him!"

He hurried off to see Arnoux. That worthy merchant was not in his shop.
But he was still residing in the Rue de Paradis, for he had two
domiciles.

In the Rue de Paradis, the porter said that M. Arnoux had been away
since the evening before. As for Madame, he ventured to say nothing; and
Frederick, having rushed like an arrow up the stairs, laid his ear
against the keyhole. At length, the door was opened. Madame had gone out
with Monsieur. The servant could not say when they would be back; her
wages had been paid, and she was leaving herself.

Suddenly he heard the door creaking.

"But is there anyone in the room?"

"Oh, no, Monsieur! it is the wind."

Thereupon he withdrew. There was something inexplicable in such a rapid
disappearance.

Regimbart, being Mignot's intimate friend, could perhaps enlighten him?
And Frederick got himself driven to that gentleman's house at
Montmartre in the Rue l'Empereur.

Attached to the house there was a small garden shut in by a grating
which was stopped up with iron plates. Three steps before the hall-door
set off the white front; and a person passing along the footpath could
see the two rooms on the ground-floor, the first of which was a parlour
with ladies' dresses lying on the furniture on every side, and the
second the workshop in which Madame Regimbart's female assistants were
accustomed to sit.

They were all convinced that Monsieur had important occupations,
distinguished connections, that he was a man altogether beyond
comparison. When he was passing through the lobby with his hat cocked up
at the sides, his long grave face, and his green frock-coat, the girls
stopped in the midst of their work. Besides, he never failed to address
to them a few words of encouragement, some observation which showed his
ceremonious courtesy; and, afterwards, in their own homes they felt
unhappy at not having been able to preserve him as their ideal.

No one, however, was so devoted to him as Madame Regimbart, an
intelligent little woman, who maintained him by her handicraft.

As soon as M. Moreau had given his name, she came out quickly to meet
him, knowing through the servants what his relations were with Madame
Dambreuse. Her husband would be back in a moment; and Frederick, while
he followed her, admired the