y the miserable woman writhing on the walk, tearing out
great wisps of her dark hair in her intolerable suffering, and filling
the air with heart-rending cries of distress.

CHAPTER IX

Jean Marot was not, as has been seen, an extraordinary type of his
countrymen. Sensitive, sympathetic, impulsive, passionate, extreme in
all things, he embodied in method and temperament the characteristics
of his race.

His first impulse upon realizing what had befallen the misguided girl
of Rue Monge was the impulse common to humanity. But as he flew to her
succor he saw others running from various directions, attracted by her
cries and moved by the same motive.

To be found there would not only be useless but dangerous,--for the
girl as well as for himself. Therefore he discreetly took to his
heels.

Flight at such a moment is confession of guilt. So it followed quite
naturally that a comprehension of what had happened sent a
considerable portion of the first-comers after the fleeing man.

"Assassin!"

"Vitrioleur!"

"Stop him!"

These are very inspiring cries with a clamorous French mob to howl
them. To be caught under such circumstances is to run imminent risk of
summary punishment. And the vitriol-thrower is not an uncommon feature
of Parisian criminal life; there would be little hesitation where one
is caught, as it were, red-handed.

Jean ran these possibilities through his mind as he dashed down a side
street into the Avenue Montsouris. Fear did not exactly lend him
wings, but it certainly did not retard his flight. And he had the
additional advantage that he was not yelling at every jump and lost no
time in false direction. He doubled by way of Rue Dareau, cut into Rue
de la Tombe-Issoire over the net-work of railway tracks, and then
dropped into a walk. But not so soon that he escaped the observation
of a police agent standing in the shadow in the next narrow turning
towards the railway station. The officer heard his panting breath long
before Jean got near him, and rightly conjectured that the student was
running away from something. To detain him for an explanation was an
obvious duty.

"Well, now! Monsieur seems to be in a hurry," said he, as he suddenly
stepped in front of the fugitive.

This official apparition would have startled even a man who was not in
a hurry, but Jean quickly recovered his self-possession.

"Yes, monsieur; I go for a doctor. A sick----"

"Pardon! but you have just passed