ment, and the
healthful happy children at play on the floor. The mortality among the
little ones, especially in the quartier occupied by the working classes,
had of late been terrible. The want of food, of fuel, the intense
severity of the weather, had swept them off as by a pestilence.

"And Monnier--what of him? No doubt he is a National Guard, and has his
pay?"

The woman made no answer, but hung down her head. She was stifling a
sob. Till then her eyes seemed to have exhausted the last source of
tears.

"He lives still?" continued Victor, pityingly: "he is not wounded?"

"No: he is well--in health; thank you kindly, Monsieur."

"But his pay is not enough to help you, and of course he can get no
work. Excuse me if I stopped you. It is because I owed Armand Monnier a
little debt for work, and I am ashamed to say that it quite escaped my
memory in these terrible events. Allow me, Madame, to pay it to you,"
and he thrust his purse into her hand. "I think this contains about the
sum I owed; if more or less, we will settle the difference later. Take
care of yourself."

He was turning away when the woman caught hold of him.

"Stay, Monsieur. May Heaven bless you!--but--but tell me what name I am
to give to Armand. I can't think of any one who owed him money. It must
have been before that dreadful strike, the beginning of all our woes.
Ah, if it were allowed to curse any one, I fear my last breath would not
be a prayer."

"You would curse the strike, or the master who did not forgive Armand's
share in it?"

"No, no,--the cruel man who talked him into it--into all that has
changed the best workman, the kindest heart--the--the--" again her voice
died in sobs.

"And who was that man?" asked De Mauleon, falteringly.

"His name was Lebeau. If you were a poor man, I should say 'Shun him.'"

"I have heard of the name you mention; but if we mean the same person,
Monnier cannot have met him lately. He has not been in Paris since the
siege."

"I suppose not, the coward! He ruined us--us who were so happy before;
and then, as Armand says, cast us away as instruments he had done with.
But--but if you do know him, and do see him again, tell him--tell him
not to complete his wrong--not to bring murder on Armand's soul. For
Armand isn't what he was--and has become, oh, so violent! I dare not
take this money without saying who gave it. He would not take money as
alms from an aristocrat. Hush! he beat me for taking money fr