rim. A sponge lay near. It had recently been soaked. The inspector
squeezed the sponge over the basin and obtained water stained with
red.

"Blood," said he.

"Blood!" echoed the alarmed students.

"She's alive," said the inspector, more to himself than to his
dumfounded auditors,--"alive, probably, else whoever brought her here
would have kept her here."

He returned abruptly to the other room, and depositing the lamp,
turned to Lerouge,--

"Were you expecting anybody else here to-night, monsieur?"

"Why, yes; Jean Marot----"

The possibility flashed upon the three young men at once, but it
seemed too preposterous. The inspector had turned to the window and
blown a shrill whistle.

"Pardon me, young gentlemen, but I'll not disturb you any longer than
I can help. What is Jean Marot's address? Good! I will leave you
company. You will not mind? Dubat will entertain you. It is better
than resting in the station-house, eh?"

With this pleasantry Inspector Loup hurried away, snatched a cab, and
was driven rapidly to the address in the Faubourg St. Honore.

* * * * *

Jean Marot was the son of a rich silk manufacturer of Lyon, and
therefore lived in more comfortable quarters than most students, in a
fashionable neighborhood on the right bank of the Seine. He had
reached his lodgings scarcely three-quarters of an hour before
Inspector Loup. But in that time he had stampeded the venerable
concierge, got his still unconscious burden to bed and fetched a
surgeon. The concierge had protested against turning the house into a
hospital for vagrant women; but Jean was of an impetuous nature, and
wilful besides, and when he was told that the last vacant chamber had
been taken that day, he boldly carried the girl to his own rooms and
placed her in his own bed. And when the concierge had reported this
fact to Madame Goutran, that excellent lady, who had officiated as
Jean's landlady for the past four years, shrugged her shoulders in
such an equivocal way that the concierge concluded that her best
interests lay in assisting the young man as much as possible.

Dr. Cardiac was not only one of the best surgeon-professors of the
Ecole de Medecine but Jean's father's personal friend. The young man
felt that he could turn to the great surgeon in this emergency, though
the latter was an expert not in regular practice.

[Illustration: HIS STILL UNCONSCIOUS BURDEN]

The appearance of Inspector