t is I who bring you these female citizens; they'll pay
like _ci-devant_ princesses, therefore--"

"Therefore, we'll drink a glass of wine together presently, my lad,"
said the landlord.

After glancing about the kitchen, blackened with smoke, and noticing a
table bloody from raw meat, Mademoiselle de Verneuil flew into the next
room with the celerity of a bird; for she shuddered at the sight and
smell of the place, and feared the inquisitive eyes of a dirty _chef_,
and a fat little woman who examined her attentively.

"What are we to do, wife?" said the landlord. "Who the devil could have
supposed we would have so many on our hands in these days? Before I
serve her a decent breakfast that woman will get impatient. Stop, an
idea! evidently she is a person of quality. I'll propose to put her with
the one we have upstairs. What do you think?"

When the landlord went to look for the new arrival he found only
Francine, to whom he spoke in a low voice, taking her to the farther end
of the kitchen, so as not to be overheard.

"If the ladies wish," he said, "to be served in private, as I have no
doubt they wish to do, I have a very nice breakfast all ready for a lady
and her son, and I dare say wouldn't mind sharing it with you; they are
persons of condition," he added, mysteriously.

He had hardly said the words before he felt a tap on his back from
the handle of a whip. He turned hastily and saw behind him a short,
thick-set man, who had noiselessly entered from a side room,--an
apparition which seemed to terrify the hostess, the cook, and the
scullion. The landlord turned pale when he saw the intruder, who shook
back the hair which concealed his forehead and eyes, raised himself on
the points of his toes to reach the other's ears, and said to him in
a whisper: "You know the cost of an imprudence or a betrayal, and the
color of the money we pay it in. We are generous in that coin."

He added a gesture which was like a horrible commentary to his words.
Though the rotundity of the landlord prevented Francine from seeing
the stranger, who stood behind him, she caught certain words of his
threatening speech, and was thunderstruck at hearing the hoarse tones of
a Breton voice. She sprang towards the man, but he, seeming to move with
the agility of a wild animal, had already darted through a side door
which opened on the courtyard. Utterly amazed, she ran to the window.
Through its panes, yellowed with smoke, she caught sig