LITMIR.BIZ

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held me to life;

       parents, frends, onor, reputation,—all, I have sacrifised all to

       you, and nothing is left me but shame, oprobrum, and—I say this

       without blushing—poverty. Nothing was wanting to my misfortunes

       but the sertainty of your contempt and hatred; and now I have them

       I find the corage that my project requires. My decision is made;

       the onor of my famly commands it. I must put an end to my

       suferins. Make no remarks upon my conduct, Henry; it is orful, I

       know, but my condition obliges me. Without help, without suport,

       without one frend to comfort me, can I live? No. Fate has desided

       for me. So in two days, Henry, two days, Ida will have seased to

       be worthy of your regard. Oh, Henry! oh, my frend! for I can never

       change to you, promise me to forgive me for what I am going to do.

       Do not forget that you have driven me to it; it is your work, and

       you must judge it. May heven not punish you for all your crimes. I

       ask your pardon on my knees, for I feel nothing is wanting to my

       misery but the sorow of knowing you unhappy. In spite of the

       poverty I am in I shall refuse all help from you. If you had loved

       me I would have taken all from your friendship; but a benfit given

       by pitty my soul refussis. I would be baser to take it than he who offered it. I have one favor to ask of you. I don’t know how long I must stay at Madame Meynardie’s; be genrous enough not to come there. Your last two vissits did me a harm I cannot get ofer. I cannot enter into particlers about that conduct of yours. You hate me,—you said so; that word is writen on my heart, and freeses it with fear. Alas! it is now, when I need all my corage, all my strength, that my faculties abandon me. Henry, my frend, before I put a barrier forever between us, give me a last pruf of your esteem. Write me, answer me, say you respect me still, though you have seased to love me. My eyes are worthy still to look into yours, but I do not ask an interfew; I fear my weakness and my love. But for pitty’s sake write me a line at once; it will give me the corage I need to meet my trubbles. Farewell, orther of all my woes, but the only frend my heart has chosen and will never forget.

      Ida.

      This life of a young girl, with its love betrayed, its fatal joys, its pangs, its miseries, and its horrible resignation, summed up in a few words, this humble poem, essentially Parisian, written on dirty paper, influenced for a passing moment Monsieur de Maulincour. He asked himself whether this Ida might not be some poor relation of Madame Jules, and that strange rendezvous, which he had witnessed by chance, the mere necessity of a charitable effort. But could that old pauper have seduced this Ida? There was something impossible in the very idea. Wandering in this labyrinth of reflections, which crossed, recrossed, and obliterated one another, the baron reached the rue Pagevin, and saw a hackney-coach standing at the end of the rue des Vieux-Augustins where it enters the rue Montmartre. All waiting hackney-coaches now had an interest for him.

      “Can she be there?” he thought to himself, and his heart beat fast with a hot and feverish throbbing.

      He pushed the little door with the bell, but he lowered his head as he did so, obeying a sense of shame, for a voice said to him secretly:—

      “Why are you putting your foot into this mystery?”

      He went up a few steps, and found himself face to face with the old portress.

      “Monsieur Ferragus?” he said.

      “Don’t know him.”

      “Doesn’t Monsieur Ferragus live here?”

      “Haven’t such a name in the house.”

      “But, my good woman—”

      “I’m not your good woman, monsieur, I’m the portress.”

      “But, madame,” persisted the baron, “I have a letter for Monsieur Ferragus.”

      “Ah! if monsieur has a letter,” she said, changing her tone, “that’s another matter. Will you let me see it—that letter?”

      Auguste showed the folded letter. The old woman shook her head with a doubtful air, hesitated, seemed to wish to leave the lodge and inform the mysterious Ferragus of his unexpected visitor, but finally said:—

      “Very good; go up, monsieur. I suppose you know the way?”

      Without replying to this remark, which he thought might be a trap, the young officer ran lightly up the stairway, and rang loudly at the door of the second floor. His lover’s instinct told him, “She is there.”

      The beggar of the porch, Ferragus, the “orther” of Ida’s woes, opened the door himself. He appeared in a flowered dressing-gown, white flannel trousers, his feet in embroidered slippers, and his face washed clean of stains. Madame Jules, whose head projected beyond the casing of the door in the next room, turned pale and dropped into a chair.

      “What is the matter, madame?” cried the officer, springing toward her.

      But Ferragus stretched forth an arm and flung the intruder back with so sharp a thrust that Auguste fancied he had received a blow with an iron bar full on his chest.

      “Back! monsieur,” said the man. “What do you want there? For five or six days you have been roaming about the neighborhood. Are you a spy?”

      “Are you Monsieur Ferragus?” said the baron.

      “No, monsieur.”

      “Nevertheless,” continued Auguste, “it is to you that I must return this paper which you dropped in the gateway beneath which we both took refuge from the rain.”

      While speaking and offering the letter to the man, Auguste did not refrain from casting an eye around the room where Ferragus received him. It was very well arranged, though simply. A fire burned on the hearth; and near it was a table with food upon it, which was served more sumptuously than agreed with the apparent conditions of the man and the poorness of his lodging. On a sofa in the next room, which he could see through the doorway, lay a heap of gold, and he heard a sound which could be no other than that of a woman weeping.

      “The paper belongs to me; I am much obliged to you,” said the mysterious man, turning away as if to make the baron understand that he must go.

      Too curious himself to take much note of the deep examination of which he was himself the object, Auguste did not see the half-magnetic glance with which this strange being seemed to pierce him; had he encountered that basilisk eye he might have felt the danger that encompassed him. Too passionately excited to think of himself, Auguste bowed, went down the stairs, and returned home, striving to find a meaning in the connection of these three persons,—Ida, Ferragus, and Madame Jules; an occupation equivalent to that of trying to arrange the many-cornered bits of a Chinese puzzle without possessing the key to the game. But Madame Jules had seen him, Madame Jules went there, Madame Jules had lied to him. Maulincour determined to go and see her the next day. She could not refuse his visit, for he was now her accomplice; he was hands and feet in the mysterious affair, and she knew it. Already he felt himself a sultan, and thought of demanding from Madame Jules, imperiously, all her secrets.

      In those days Paris was seized with a building-fever. If Paris is a monster, it is certainly a most mania-ridden monster. It becomes enamored of a thousand fancies: sometimes it has a mania for building, like a great seigneur who loves a trowel; soon it abandons the trowel and becomes all military; it arrays itself from head to foot as a national guard, and drills and smokes; suddenly, it abandons military manoeuvres and flings away cigars; it is commercial, care-worn, falls into bankruptcy, sells its furniture on the place de Chatelet, files its schedule; but a few days later, lo! it has arranged its affairs and is

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