e, perceived his departure.

Reaching the Royal postal establishment, la Peyrade was puzzled as to
whom to address himself in order to obtain the information he wanted. He
began by explaining to the porter that he had a letter to send to a
lady of his acquaintance that morning by post, neglecting, very
thoughtlessly, to send him her address, and that he thought he might
discover it by means of the passport which she must have presented in
order to obtain horses.

"Was it a lady accompanied by a maid whom I took up on the boulevard de
la Madeleine?" asked a postilion sitting in the corner of the room where
la Peyrade was making his preliminary inquiry.

"Exactly," said la Peyrade, going eagerly up to the providential being,
and slipping a five-franc piece into his hand.

"Ah! well, she's a queer traveller!" said the man, "she told me to take
her to the Bois de Boulogne, and there she made me drive round and round
for an hour. After that, we came back to the Barriere de l'Etoile, where
she gave me a good 'pourboire' and got into a hackney coach, telling me
to take the travelling carriage back to the man who lets such carriages
in the Cour des Coches, Faubourg Saint-Honore."

"Give me the name of that man?" said la Peyrade, eagerly.

"Simonin," replied the postilion.

Furnished with that information la Peyrade resumed his course, and
fifteen minutes later he was questioning the livery-stable keeper; but
that individual knew only that a lady residing on the Boulevard de la
Madeleine had hired, without horses, a travelling-carriage for half a
day; that he had sent out the said carriage at nine that morning, and it
was brought back at twelve by a postilion of the Royal Post house.

"Never mind," thought la Peyrade, "I am certain now she has not left
Paris, and is not avoiding me. Most probably, she wants to break utterly
with the Thuilliers, and so has invented this journey. Fool that I am!
no doubt there's a letter waiting for me at home, explaining the whole
thing."

Worn out with emotion and fatigue, and in order to verify as quickly as
possible this new supposition, la Peyrade flung himself into a street
cab, and in less than a quarter of an hour, having promised the driver a
good pourboire, he was deposited at the house in the rue Saint-Dominique
d'Enfer. There he was compelled to endure still longer the tortures of
waiting. Since Brigitte's departure, the duty of the porter, Coffinet,
had been very negligently