led, did he? Well, then, I am going to tell every
thing I know. First of all, he wasn't any thing to me. It isn't
very flattering; but it is so. He has never kissed so much as the
end of my finger. He used to say that he loved me, but that he
respected me still more, because I looked so much like a daughter
he had lost. Old humbug! And I believed him too! I did, upon my
word, at least in the beginning. But I am not such a fool as I
look. I found out very soon that he was making fun of me; and that
he was only using me as a blind to keep suspicion away from another
woman."

"From what woman?"

"Ah! now, I do not know! All I know is that she is married, that
he is crazy about her, and that they are to run away together."

"Hasn't he gone, then?"

Mme. Cadelle's face had become somewhat anxious, and for over a
minute she seemed to hesitate.

"Do you know," she said at last, "that my answer is going to cost
me a lot? They have promised me a pile of money; but I haven't got
it yet. And, if I say any thing, good-by! I sha'n't have any thing."

M. de Tregars was opening his lips to tell her that she might rest
easy on that score; but she cut him short.

"Well, no," she said: "Old Vincent hasn't gone. He got up a comedy,
so he told me, to throw the lady's husband off the track. He sent
off a whole lot of baggage by the railroad; but he staid in Paris."

"And do you know where he is hid?"

"In the Rue St. Lazare, of course: in the apartment that I hired
two weeks ago."

In a voice trembling with the excitement of almost certain success,
"Would you consent to take me there?" asked M. de Tregars.

"Whenever you like,--to-morrow."

IX

As he left Mlle. Lucienne's room,

"There is nothing more to keep me at the Hotel des Folies," said
the commissary of police to Maxence. "Every thing possible will be
done, and well done, by M. de Tregars. I am going home, therefore;
and I am going to take you with me. I have a great deal to do and
you'll help me."

That was not exactly true; but he feared, on the part of Maxence,
some imprudence which might compromise the success of M. de
Tregars' mission.

He was trying to think of every thing to leave as little as possible
to chance; like a man who has seen the best combined plans fail for
want of a trifling precaution.

Once in the yard, he opened the door of the lodge where the
honorable Fortins, man and wife, were deliberating, and exchanging
their