ee persons--two
being elderly; these she addresses as "Mon Oncle" and "Ma Tante." She
laughs, she chats; good-humoured, buxom, and blooming, she looks, at
all points, the bourgeoise belle.

"So much for Justine Marie;" so much for ghosts and mystery: not that
this last was solved--this girl certainly is not my nun: what I saw in
the garret and garden must have been taller by a span.

We have looked at the city belle; we have cursorily glanced at the
respectable old uncle and aunt. Have we a stray glance to give to the
third member of this company? Can we spare him a moment's notice? We
ought to distinguish him so far, reader; he has claims on us; we do not
now meet him for the first time. I clasped my hands very hard, and I
drew my breath very deep: I held in the cry, I devoured the
ejaculation, I forbade the start, I spoke and I stirred no more than a
stone; but I knew what I looked on; through the dimness left in my eyes
by many nights' weeping, I knew him. They said he was to sail by the
_Antigua_. Madame Beck said so. She lied, or she had uttered what was
once truth, and failed to contradict it when it became false. The
_Antigua_ was gone, and there stood Paul Emanuel.

Was I glad? A huge load left me. Was it a fact to warrant joy? I know
not. Ask first what were the circumstances attendant on this respite?
How far did this delay concern _me?_ Were there not those whom it might
touch more nearly?

After all, who may this young girl, this Justine Marie, be? Not a
stranger, reader; she is known to me by sight; she visits at the Rue
Fossette: she is often of Madame Beck's Sunday parties. She is a
relation of both the Becks and Walravens; she derives her baptismal
name from the sainted nun who would have been her aunt had she lived;
her patronymic is Sauveur; she is an heiress and an orphan, and M.
Emanuel is her guardian; some say her godfather.

The family junta wish this heiress to be married to one of their
band--which is it? Vital question--which is it?

I felt very glad now, that the drug administered in the sweet draught
had filled me with a possession which made bed and chamber intolerable.
I always, through my whole life, liked to penetrate to the real truth;
I like seeking the goddess in her temple, and handling the veil, and
daring the dread glance. O Titaness among deities! the covered outline
of thine aspect sickens often through its uncertainty, but define to us
one trait, show us one lineament, cle