is?' I said.

'I picked it up in the street,' he answered quietly, 'not three hundred
paces from here.'

I thought a moment. 'In the gutter, or near the wall?' I asked.

'Near the wall, to be sure.'

'Under a window?'

'Precisely,' he said. 'You may be easy; I am not a fool. I marked the
place, M. de Marsac, and shall not forget it.'

Even the sorrow and solicitude I felt on my mother's behalf--feelings
which had seemed a minute before to secure me against all other cares or
anxieties whatever--were not proof against this discovery. For I found
myself placed in a strait so cruel I must suffer either way. On the
one hand, I could not leave my mother; I were a heartless ingrate to do
that. On the other, I could not, without grievous pain, stand still and
inactive while Mademoiselle de la Vire, whom I had sworn to protect, and
who was now suffering through my laches and mischance, appealed to me
for help. For I could not doubt that this was what the bow of velvet
meant; still less that it was intended for me, since few save myself
would be likely to recognise it, and she would naturally expect me to
make some attempt at pursuit.

And I could not think little of the sign. Remembering mademoiselle's
proud and fearless spirit, and the light in which she had always
regarded me, I augured the worst from it. I felt assured that no
imaginary danger and no emergency save the last would have induced her
to stoop so low; and this consideration, taken with the fear I felt
that she had fallen into the hands of Fresnoy, whom I believed to be
the person who had robbed me of the gold coin, filled me with a horrible
doubt which way my duty lay. I was pulled, as it were, both ways. I felt
my honour engaged both to go and to stay, and while my hand went to my
hilt, and my feet trembled to be gone, my eyes sought my mother, and my
ears listened for her gentle breathing.

Perplexed and distracted, I looked at the student, and he at me. 'You
saw the man who took her away,' I muttered. Hitherto, in my absorption
on my mother's account, I had put few questions, and let the matter pass
as though it moved me little and concerned me less. 'What was he like?
Was he a big, bloated man, Simon, with his head bandaged, or perhaps a
wound on his face?'

'The gentleman who went away with mademoiselle, do you mean?' he asked.

'Yes, yes, gentleman if you like!'

'Not at all,' the student answered. 'He was a tall young gallant, very
gaily dres