LITMIR.BIZ

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to marry a marquis, whose father was a particular friend of the family. The parents had arranged the matter between them years before, and nothing was wanting but the young lady’s consent; but Mademoiselle Hermine absolutely refused to hear the marquis’s name mentioned.

      “They did everything to persuade her to consent to this marriage; they employed prayers and threats alike, but they might as well have talked to a stone. When they asked her why she refused to marry the marquis, she replied, ‘Because’—and that was all. In fact, at last she declared she would leave home and take refuge in a convent, if they didn’t cease to torment her. Her relatives were certain there must be some reason for her refusal. It isn’t natural for a girl to reject a suitor who is young, handsome, rich, and a marquis besides. Her friends suspected there was something she wouldn’t confess; and M. Raymond swore that he would watch his sister, and discover her secret.”

      “M. Raymond is the present Count de Chalusse, I suppose?” inquired M. Fortunat.

      “Yes, monsieur. Such was the state of matters when, one night, the gardener thought he heard a noise in the pavilion, at the end of the garden. This pavilion was very large. I have seen it. It contained a sitting-room, a billiard-room, and a large fencing-hall. Naturally enough, the gardener got up to go and see what was the matter. As he left the house, he fancied he saw two persons moving about among the trees. He ran after them, but could find nothing. They had made their escape through a small gate leading from the garden into the street. When the gardener was telling me this story, he declared again and again that he had fancied the noise he had heard was made by some of the servants trying to leave the house secretly, and for this reason he didn’t give the alarm. However, he hurried to the pavilion, but on seeing no light there, he went back to bed with an easy mind.”

      “And it was Mademoiselle Hermine eloping with a lover?” asked M. Fortunat.

      Madame Vantrasson seemed as disappointed as an actor who has been deprived of an opportunity of producing a grand effect. “Wait a moment,” she replied, “and you’ll see. The night passed, morning came, and then the breakfast hour. But Mademoiselle Hermine did not make her appearance. Some one was sent to rap at her door—there was no answer. The door was opened—the young lady was not in her room, and the bed had not even been disturbed. In a few moments the whole household was in the wildest commotion; the mother weeping, and the father half wild with rage and sorrow. Of course, the next thought was of Mademoiselle Hermine’s brother, and he was sent for. But, he, too, was not in his room, and his bed had not been touched. The excitement was becoming frenzy, when it occurred to the gardener to mention what he had heard and seen on the previous night. They hastened to the pavilion, and discovered what? Why, M. Raymond stretched upon the ground, stiff, cold, and motionless, weltering in his own blood. One of his rigid hands still grasped a sword. They lifted him up, carried him to the house, laid him upon his bed, and sent for a physician. He had received two dangerous wounds; one in the throat, the other in the breast. For more than a month he hung between life and death, and six weeks elapsed before he had strength to relate what had happened. He was lighting a cigar at his window when he thought he saw a woman’s form flit through the garden. A suspicion that it might be his sister flashed through his mind; so he hastened down, stole noiselessly into the pavilion, and there he found his sister and a young man who was absolutely unknown to him. He might have killed the intruder, but instead of doing so, he told him they would fight then and there. Weapons were within reach, and they fought, with the result that Raymond was wounded twice, in quick succession, and fell. His adversary, supposing him dead, thereupon fled from the spot, taking Mademoiselle Hermine with him.”

      At this point in her narrative Madame Vantrasson evinced a desire to pause and draw a breath, and perhaps partake of some slight refreshment; but M. Fortunat was impatient. The woman’s husband might return at any moment. “And, after that?” he inquired.

      “After that—well—M. Raymond recovered, and in about three months’ time he was out again; but the parents, who were old folks, had received their death-blow. They never rallied from the shock. Perhaps they felt that it was their own hard-heartedness and obstinacy that had caused their daughter’s ruin—and remorse is hard to bear. They waned perceptibly from day to day, and during the following year they were borne to the cemetery within two months of each other.”

      From the spurious clerk’s demeanor it was easy to see that he had ceased thinking about his omnibus, and his hostess felt both reassured and flattered. “And Mademoiselle Hermine?” he inquired, eagerly.

      “Alas! monsieur, no one ever knew where she went, or what became of her.”

      “Didn’t they try to find her?”

      “They searched for her everywhere, for I don’t know how long; all the ablest detectives in France and in foreign countries tried to find her, but not one of them succeeded in discovering the slightest trace of her whereabouts. M. Raymond promised an enormous sum to the man who would find his sister’s betrayer. He wished to kill him, and he sought for him for years; but all in vain.”

      “And did they never receive any tidings of this unfortunate girl?”

      “I was told that they heard from her twice. On the morning following her flight her parents received a letter, in which she implored their forgiveness. Five or six months later, she wrote again to say that she knew her brother was not dead. She confessed that she was a wicked, ungrateful girl—that she had been mad; but she said that her punishment had come, and it was terrible. She added that every link was severed between herself and her friends, and she hoped they would forget her as completely as if she had never existed. She went so far as to say that her children should never know who their mother was, and that never in her life again would she utter the name which she had so disgraced.”

      It was the old, sad story of a ruined girl paying for a moment’s madness with her happiness and all her after life. A terrible drama, no doubt; but one that is of such frequent occurrence that it seems as commonplace as life itself. Thus any one who was acquainted with M. Isidore Fortunat would have been surprised to see how greatly he was moved by such a trifle. “Poor girl!” said he, in view of saying something. And then, in a tone of assumed carelessness, he inquired: “Did they never discover what scoundrel carried Mademoiselle de Chalusse away?”

      “Never. Who he was, whence he came, whether he was young or old, how he became acquainted with Mademoiselle Hermine—these questions were never answered. It was rumored at one time that he was an American, a captain in the navy; but that was only a rumor. To tell the truth, they never even discovered his name.”

      “What, not even his name?”

      “Not even his name.”

      Unable to master his emotion, M. Fortunat had at least the presence of mind to rise and step back into the darker part of the shop. But his gesture of disappointment and the muttered oath that fell from his lips did not escape Madame Vantrasson. She was startled, and from that moment she looked upon the supposed clerk with evident distrust. It was not long before he again resumed his seat nearer the counter, still a trifle pale, perhaps, but apparently calm. Two questions more seemed indispensable to him, and yet either one of them would be sure to arouse suspicion. Nevertheless, he resolved to incur the risk of betraying himself. And, after all, what would it matter now? Did he not possess the information he had wished for, at least as much of it as it was in this woman’s power to impart? “I can scarcely tell you, my dear madame, how much your narrative has interested me,” he began. “I can confess now that I am slightly acquainted with the Count de Chalusse, and that I have frequently visited the house in the Rue de Courcelles, where he now resides.”

      “You!” exclaimed the woman, taking a hasty inventory of M. Fortunat’s toilette.

      “Yes, I—on the part of my employer, understand. Each time I’ve been to visit M. de Chalusse’s I’ve seen a young lady whom I took for his daughter there. I was wrong, no doubt, since he isn’t a married man—”

      He paused. Astonishment and anger seemed to be almost suffocating his hostess. Without understanding how or why, she felt convinced that she had been duped; and if she had obeyed her first impulse she would have attacked M. Isidore then

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