, straight-forward people,
and I am anxious that my husband should not be compromised."

The official shrugged his shoulders, as though to say that the whole
affair was a great nuisance.

"Do you know," he said impatiently, "that I have been pestered with this
business for more than a year past? Denunciation after denunciation has
been sent to me, and I am being continually goaded and pressed to take
action. You will understand that if I haven't done so as yet, it is
because I prefer to wait. We have good reasons for our conduct in the
matter. Stay, now, here are the papers relating to it. I'll let you see
them."

He laid before her an immense collection of papers in a blue wrapper.
Lisa turned them over. They were like detached chapters of the story she
had just been relating. The commissaires of police at Havre, Rouen, and
Vernon notified Florent's arrival within their respective jurisdictions.
Then came a report which announced that he had taken up his residence
with the Quenu-Gradelles. Next followed his appointment at the markets,
an account of his mode of life, the spending of his evenings at Monsieur
Lebigre's; not a detail was deficient. Lisa, quite astounded as she
was, noticed that the reports were in duplicate, so that they must have
emanated from two different sources. And at last she came upon a pile of
letters, anonymous letters of every shape, and in every description of
handwriting. They brought her amazement to a climax. In one letter she
recognised the villainous hand of Mademoiselle Saget, denouncing the
people who met in the little sanctum at Lebigre's. On a large piece of
greasy paper she identified the heavy pot-hooks of Madame Lecoeur;
and there was also a sheet of cream-laid note-paper, ornamented with a
yellow pansy, and covered with the scrawls of La Sarriette and Monsieur
Jules. These two letters warned the Government to beware of Gavard.
Farther on Lisa recognised the coarse style of old Madame Mehudin, who
in four pages of almost indecipherable scribble repeated all the wild
stories about Florent that circulated in the markets. However, what
startled her more than anything else was the discovery of a bill-head
of her own establishment, with the inscription _Quenu-Gradelle, Pork
Butcher_, on its face, whilst on the back of it Auguste had penned
a denunciation of the man whom he looked upon as an obstacle to his
marriage.

The official had acted upon a secret idea in placing these papers b