."

"Let me pass," pleaded a voice I knew: "I ask but five minutes;" and a
familiar shape, tall and grand (as we of the Rue Fossette all thought
it), issued from the house, and strode down amongst the beds and walks.
It was sacrilege--the intrusion of a man into that spot, at that hour;
but he knew himself privileged, and perhaps he trusted to the friendly
night. He wandered down the alleys, looking on this side and on
that--he was lost in the shrubs, trampling flowers and breaking
branches in his search--he penetrated at last the "forbidden walk."
There I met him, like some ghost, I suppose.

"Dr. John! it is found."

He did not ask by whom, for with his quick eye he perceived that I held
it in my hand.

"Do not betray her," he said, looking at me as if I were indeed a
dragon.

"Were I ever so disposed to treachery, I cannot betray what I do not
know," was my answer. "Read the note, and you will see how little it
reveals."

"Perhaps you have read it," I thought to myself; and yet I could not
believe he wrote it: that could hardly be his style: besides, I was
fool enough to think there would be a degree of hardship in his calling
me such names. His own look vindicated him; he grew hot, and coloured
as he read.

"This is indeed too much: this is cruel, this is humiliating," were the
words that fell from him.

I thought it _was_ cruel, when I saw his countenance so moved. No
matter whether he was to blame or not; somebody, it seemed to me, must
be more to blame.

"What shall you do about it?" he inquired of me. "Shall you tell Madame
Beck what you have found, and cause a stir--an esclandre?"

I thought I ought to tell, and said so; adding that I did not believe
there would be either stir or esclandre: Madame was much too prudent to
make a noise about an affair of that sort connected with her
establishment.

He stood looking down and meditating. He was both too proud and too
honourable to entreat my secresy on a point which duty evidently
commanded me to communicate. I wished to do right, yet loathed to
grieve or injure him. Just then Rosine glanced out through the open
door; she could not see us, though between the trees I could plainly
see her: her dress was grey, like mine. This circumstance, taken in
connection with prior transactions, suggested to me that perhaps the
case, however deplorable, was one in which I was under no obligation
whatever to concern myself. Accordingly, I said,--"If you can assure