u have only a modest station, without
distinction, without importance, without money even, you do not
know how happy that would make me. You ought to understand me by
this time; why will you not tell me the truth? I am no poet,
--except in heart, through love, through you. Oh! what power of
affection there is in me to keep me here in this hotel, instead of
mounting to Ingouville which I can see from my windows. Will you
ever love me as I love you? To leave Havre in such uncertainty! Am
I not punished for loving you as if I had committed a crime? But I
obey you blindly. Let me have a letter quickly, for if you have
been mysterious, I have returned you mystery for mystery, and I
must at last throw off my disguise, show you the poet that I am,
and abdicate my borrowed glory.

This letter made Modeste terribly uneasy. She could not get back the
one which Francoise had carried away before she came to the last words,
whose meaning she now sought by reading them again and again; but
she went to her own room and wrote an answer in which she demanded an
immediate explanation.

CHAPTER XIV. MATTERS GROWN COMPLICATED

During these little events other little events were going on in Havre,
which caused Modeste to forget her present uneasiness. Dumay went down
to Havre early in the morning, and soon discovered that no architect had
been in town the day before. Furious at Butscha's lie, which revealed a
conspiracy of which he was resolved to know the meaning, he rushed from
the mayor's office to his friend Latournelle.

"Where's your Master Butscha?" he demanded of the notary, when he saw
that the clerk was not in his place.

"Butscha, my dear fellow, has gone to Paris. He heard some news of his
father this morning on the quays, from a Swedish sailor. It seems the
father went to the Indies and served a prince, or something, and he is
now in Paris."

"Lies! it's all a trick! infamous! I'll find that damned cripple if I've
got to go express to Paris for him," cried Dumay. "Butscha is deceiving
us; he knows something about Modeste, and hasn't told us. If he meddles
in this thing he shall never be a notary. I'll roll him in the mud from
which he came, I'll--"

"Come, come, my friend; never hang a man before you try him," said
Latournelle, frightened at Dumay's rage.

After stating the facts on which his suspicions were founded, Dumay
begged Madame Latournelle to go and stay at the Chalet during his