Baudoin, courage!" said Adrienne, as she threw her cloak over
the workgirl's shoulders, and wrapped her round with care. "Let us be
gone, for it is late. As soon as we get home, I will give you a letter
for M. Hardy, and to-morrow you will come and tell me the result of your
visit. No, not to-morrow," she added, blushing slightly. "Write to me
to-morrow, and the day after, about twelve, come to me."

Some minutes later, the young sempstress, supported by Agricola and
Adrienne, had descended the stairs of that gloomy house, and, being
placed in the carriage by the side of Mdlle. de Cardoville, she
earnestly entreated to be allowed to see Cephyse; it was in vain that
Agricola assured her it was impossible, and that she should see her the
next day. Thanks to the information derived from Rose-Pompon, Mdlle. de
Cardoville was reasonably suspicious of all those who surrounded Djalma,
and she therefore took measures, that, very evening, to have a letter
delivered to the prince by what she considered a sure hand.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE TWO CARRIAGES.

It is the evening of the day on which Mdlle. de Cardoville prevented the
sewing-girl's suicide. It strikes eleven; the night is dark; the
wind blows with violence, and drives along great black clouds, which
completely hide the pale lustre of the moon. A hackney-coach, drawn by
two broken-winded horses, ascends slowly and with difficulty the slope
of the Rue Blanche, which is pretty steep near the barrier, in the part
where is situated the house occupied by Djalma.

The coach stops. The coachman, cursing the length of an interminable
drive "within the circuit," leading at last to this difficult ascent,
turns round on his box, leans over towards the front window of the
vehicle, and says in a gruff tone to the person he is driving: "Come!
are we almost there? From the Rue de Vaugirard to the Barriere Blanche,
is a pretty good stretch, I think, without reckoning that the night
is so dark, that one can hardly see two steps before one--and the
street-lamps not lighted because of the moon, which doesn't shine, after
all!"

"Look out for a little door with a portico-drive on about twenty yards
beyond--and then stop close to the wall," answered a squeaking voice,
impatiently, and with an Italian accent.

"Here is a beggarly Dutchman, that will make me as savage as a bear?"
muttered the angry Jehu to himself. Then he added: "Thousand thunders!
I tell you that I can't see. How th