iling himself of the permission that had been
granted him, he kept himself constantly informed of Mlle. Lucienne's
doings. He learnt from her that her friend the commissary had held
a most minute investigation at Louveciennes, and that the footman
who went to the bois with her was now, in reality, a detective.
And at last, one day,

"My friend the commissary," she said, "thinks he is on the right
track now."

XXIX

Such was the exact situation of Maxence and Mlle. Lucienne on that
eventful Saturday evening in the month of April, 1872, when the
police came to arrest M. Vincent Favoral, on the charge of
embezzlement and forgery.

It will be remembered, how, at his mother's request, Maxence had
spent that night in the Rue St. Gilles, and how, the next morning,
unable any longer to resist his eager desire to see Mlle. Lucienne,
he had started for the Hotel des Folies, leaving his sister alone
at home.

He retired to his room, as she had requested him, and, sinking
upon his old arm-chair in a fit of the deepest distress,

"She is singing," he murmured: "Mme. Fortin has not told her any
thing."

And at the same moment Mlle. Lucienne had resumed her song, the
words of which reached him like a bitter raillery,

"Hope! O sweet, deceiving word!
Mad indeed is he,
Who does think he can trust thee,
And take thy coin can afford.
Over his door every one
Will hang thee to his sorrow,
Then saying of days begone,
'Cash to-day, credit to-morrow!'
'Tis very nice to run;
But to have is better fun!"

"What will she say," thought Maxence, "when she learns the horrible
truth?"

And he felt a cold perspiration starting on his temples when he
remembered Mlle. Lucienne's pride, and that honor has her only faith,
the safety-plank to which she had desperately clung in the midst of
the storms of her life. What if she should leave him, now that the
name he bore was disgraced!

A rapid and light step on the landing drew him from his gloomy
thoughts. Almost immediately, the door opened, and Mlle. Lucienne
came in.

She must have dressed in haste; for she was just finishing hooking
her dress, the simplicity of which seemed studied, so marvelously
did it set off the elegance of her figure, the splendors of her
waist, and the rare perfections of her shoulders and of her neck.

A look of intense dissatisfaction could be