nnot tell you, _mon ami_," said the abbe, laying down his
book with a look of despair.

The morning after I was again in the corridor a full half hour before
my usual time, but the window wore its usual air. The next day, again
I was an hour beforehand, and the abbe had not put off his priest
robe, in which he goes to morning mass; still there was no
handkerchief at the little window--no wavy mesh of hair--no taper
arm--no shadowy form moving in the dim chamber.

I had arranged to leave for the south in a few days, and was more than
ever anxious for some explication of the mystery. A single further
mode only occurred to me; I would go to the concierge next door, and
under pretence of looking for rooms, would have him conduct me through
his hotel.

It had dismal corridors, and steeper stairways than even the abbe's. I
was careless about the second and the third floors; and it was not
till we had mounted a half dozen crazy pair of stairs, that I began to
scrutinize narrowly the doors, and sometimes to ask if this or that
chamber was occupied. I made my way always to the windows of the rooms
shown me, in hope of seeing the little court I knew so well, and the
abbe's half-open corridor, and yet in half fear, that I might, after
all, be looking from the very window about which hung so perplexing
mystery.

It was long before I caught sight of my old point of observation in
the neighboring corridor. The room was small, and was covered with
singular ancient hangings, with a concealed door, which the concierge
opened into a charming little cabinet. How many more concealed doors
there might have been I do not know. I put my head out the window, and
looked down in search of the strange casement; it was not below. Then
I looked to one side--there was the long window with a striped
curtain. I looked to the other side--another long window. I looked
up--there at length it was, over my left shoulder. I could see plainly
the yellow placard, and heard it flapping the casement.

I asked the concierge if he had no rooms above.

"_Oui, monsieur_--a single one; but it is too high for monsieur."

"Let me see," said I--and we mounted a miserably dim staircase. There
were three doors; the concierge opened the nearest to the landing.

"_La voici, monsieur._" It was a sad little affair, and looked out by
just such a loop-hole as was the object of my curiosity, upon a court
I did not know.

"It will never do," said I, as I came out of t