being robbed of its prey.

"He has not left Paris," said Latour.

"Even if he had, I should find him," she said.

Latour left her and returned to his own rooms.

"This woman will find him, once she is let loose," he muttered. "I can
almost pity Citizen Bruslart, thrice damned villain that he is. And
Barrington? I must see Barrington."

CHAPTER XVIII

DR. LEGRAND'S ASYLUM

The Rue Charonne was a long street extending toward the outer limits of
the city, and while at one end, near the Chat Rouge Tavern, it was a
busy thoroughfare with crowded Streets on either side of it, at the
other end it was quiet, and almost deserted in the evenings. The houses
were less closely packed, and there were walls which trees overhung,
telling of pleasant and shady gardens.

Behind such a wall the passer-by had a glimpse of the upper windows and
steep roof of a house of considerable size. On one side of it stretched
a garden, on the other some outbuildings joined it to another house
which had nothing to do with it, but was one of a block of rather old
houses which faced the street.

This house, in its pleasant garden, was, as every one knew, a private
asylum and sanatorium conducted by Dr. Legrand. He had come there half a
dozen years ago, and for some time there had been only a few inmates,
not dangerously insane, but unfit to be at large, and two or three
others who had retired into this retreat to end their days in peace. In
the last few months, however, the number of residents had vastly
increased. Certainly every room in the house must be occupied, the
larger rooms probably divided into two or three, the neighbors argued,
and most of the inmates did not appear to be insane. It was not a time
to busy one's self about other people's affairs, it was much safer
neither to gossip nor to listen to gossip; so to many persons the riddle
of Monsieur Legrand's sudden prosperity remained unsolved.

Yet many people understood the riddle, and were not slow to profit by
it. This house, although one of the best known, was not the only one of
its kind to be found in Paris. Legrand was a man of business as well as
a doctor, a better man of business than he was a doctor, and perceived,
almost by a stroke of genius, how he might profit by the Revolution. To
many a revolutionary leader gold was better than the head of an
aristocrat, although by that curious twist of conscience which men can
so easily contrive for themselves, direct br