ade myself known. The slight information I gave you as to my niece
was gleaned from him.

"I may now say more. It appears that when he arrived at Aix-la-Chapelle
he found that Louise Duval had left it a day or two previously, and
according to scandal had been for some time courted by a wealthy and
noble lover, whom she had gone to Munich to meet. Louvier believed
this tale: quitted Aix indignantly, and never heard more of her. The
probability is, M. Vane, that she must have been long dead. But if
living still, I feel quite sure that she will communicate with me
some day or other. Now that I have reappeared in Paris in my own
name--entered into a career that, for good or for evil, must ere long
bring my name very noisily before the public--Louise cannot fail to hear
of my existence and my whereabouts; and unless I am utterly mistaken
as to her character, she will assuredly inform me of her own. Oblige
me with your address, and in that case I will let you know. Of course
I take for granted the assurance you gave me last year, that you only
desire to discover her in order to render her some benefit, not to
injure or molest her?"

"Certainly. To that assurance I pledge my honour. Any letter with which
you may favour me had better be directed to my London address; here is
my card. But, M. le Vicomte, there is one point on which pray pardon me
if I question you still. Had you no suspicion that there was one reason
why this lady might have quitted Paris so hastily, and have so shrunk
from the thought of a marriage so advantageous, in a worldly point
of view, as that with M. Louvier,--namely, that she anticipated the
probability of becoming the mother of a child by the man whom she
refused to acknowledge as a husband?"

"That idea did not strike me until you asked me if she had a child.
Should your conjecture be correct, it would obviously increase her
repugnance to apply for the annulment of her illegal marriage. But if
Louise is still living and comes across me, I do not doubt that, the
motives for concealment no longer operating, she will confide to me the
truth. Since we have been talking together thus frankly, I suppose I
may fairly ask whether I do not guess correctly in supposing that this
soi-disant husband, whose name I forget,--Mac--something, perhaps,
Scotch-I think she said he was Ecossais,--is dead and has left by will
some legacy to Louise and any child she may have borne to him?"

"Not exactly so. The man, as