Well, as I told you, she left with post-horses this morning. Two hours
earlier monsieur might still have found her; but now, with post-horses,
she must by this time have gone a good distance."

La Peyrade departed, with a sense of despair in his heart. Added to the
anxiety caused by this hasty departure, jealousy entered his soul,
and in this agonizing moment of disappointment the most distressing
explanations crowded on his mind.

Then, after further reflection, he said to himself:--

"These clever diplomatic women are often sent on secret missions which
require the most absolute silence, and extreme rapidity of movement."

But here a sudden revulsion of thought overcame him:--

"Suppose she were one of those intriguing adventurers whom foreign
governments employ as agents? Suppose the tale, more or less probable,
of that Russian princess forced to sell her furniture to Brigitte were
also that of this Hungarian countess? And yet," he continued, as his
brain made a third evolution in this frightful anarchy of ideas and
feelings, "her education, her manners, her language, all bespoke a woman
of the best position. Besides, if she were only a bird of passage, why
have given herself so much trouble to win me over?"

La Peyrade might have continued to plead thus for and against for a long
time had he not been suddenly grasped round the shoulders by a strong
arm and addressed in a well-known voice.

"Take care! my dear barrister; a frightful danger threatens you; you are
running right into it."

La Peyrade, thus arrested, looked round and found himself in the arms of
Phellion.

The scene took place in front of a house which was being pulled down at
the corner of the rues Duphot and Saint-Honore. Posted on the pavement
of the other side of the street, Phellion, whose taste for watching the
process of building our readers may remember, had been witnessing for
the last fifteen minutes the drama of a wall about to fall beneath
the united efforts of a squadron of workmen. Watch in hand, the great
citizen was estimating the length of the resistance which that mass of
freestone would present to the destructive labor of which it was the
object. Precisely at the crucial moment of the impending catastrophe la
Peyrade, lost in the tumult of his thoughts, was entering, heedless of
the shouts addressed to him on all sides, the radius within which the
stones would fall. Seen by Phellion (who, it must be said, would have
done the