within the precincts of the far-spreading barriers; but could he drag
his cousin's name before those public authorities? Could he describe her
person to them, and enter into details which would enable them to hunt
her down like a criminal? Delicacy, manly feeling, forbade. He must seek
her himself, unaided, unguided; and a superstitious faith grew strong
within him that, through his unremitting search, never foregone, never
relaxed, he would discover her at last.

His plan was sufficiently vague and wild. He resolved to scour Paris
from end to end, scanning every face that passed him, until the light
shone upon hers, and kindled up once more his darkened existence.

When he last returned from Brittany, he had engaged one small, plain
apartment in the Rue Bonaparte, the _Latin_ quarter of the city,--a
favorite locality of students. Here he again took up his abode, or,
rather, here he passed his nights; he could scarcely be said to have a
dwelling-place by day. From dawn until late in the evening he wandered
through the streets, peering into every youthful countenance that
flitted by him, quickening his pace if he caught sight of some graceful
female form above the ordinary stature, and plunging onward in pursuit,
with his heart throbbing madly, and his fevered brain cheating him with
phantoms. His search became almost a monomania. His mind, fixed
strainingly upon this one, all-engrossing object, lost its balance, and
he could no longer reason upon his own course, or see its futility, or
devise a better. The invariable disappointment which closed every day's
search, by some strange contradiction, only confirmed him in the belief
that Madeleine was in Paris, and that he would shortly find her there;
that he would meet her by some fortunate chance; would be drawn to her
by some mysterious magnetic instinct. Every few days he visited the
_bureau des passeports_, to ascertain whether her passport had been
presented to be _vised_.

To the friends he daily encountered he scarcely spoke, but hurried past
them with hasty greeting, and a painfully engrossed look, which caused
the sympathetic to turn their heads and gaze after him, wondering at the
disordered attire and unsettled demeanor of the once elegant and
vivacious young nobleman, who had graced the most courtly circles, and
was looked upon as the very "glass of fashion and mould of form."

Maurice had been nearly a month in Paris, passing his days in the manner
we have d