.

The next morning Graham sent again for M. Renard. "Well," he cried, when
that dignitary appeared and took a seat beside him, "chance has favoured
me."

"I always counted on chance, Monsieur. Chance has more wit in its little
finger than the Paris police in its whole body."

"I have ascertained the relations, on the mother's side, of Louise
Duval, and the only question is how to get at them." Here Graham related
what he had heard, and ended by saying, "This Victor de Mauleon is
therefore my Louise Duval's uncle. He was, no doubt, taking charge of
her in the year that the persons interested in her discovery lost sight
of her in Paris; and surely he must know what became of her afterwards."

"Very probably; and chance may befriend us yet in the discovery of
Victor de Mauleon. You seem not to know the particulars of that story
about the jewels which brought him into some connection with the police,
and resulted in his disappearance from Paris."

"No; tell me the particulars."

"Victor de Mauleon was heir to some 60,000 or 70,000 francs a year,
chiefly on the mother's side; for his father, though the representative
of one of the most ancient houses in Normandy, was very poor, having
little of his own except the emoluments of an appointment in the Court
of Louis Philippe.

"But before, by the death of his parents, Victor came into that
inheritance, he very largely forestalled it. His tastes were
magnificent. He took to 'sport,' kept a famous stud, was a great
favourite with the English, and spoke their language fluently. Indeed
he was considered very accomplished, and of considerable intellectual
powers. It was generally said that some day or other, when he had sown
his wild oats, he would, if he took to politics, be an eminent man.
Altogether he was a very strong creature. That was a very strong age
under Louis Philippe. The viveurs of Paris were fine types for the
heroes of Dumas and Sue,--full of animal life and spirits. Victor de
Mauleon was a romance of Dumas, incarnated."

"Monsieur Renard, forgive me that I did not before do justice to your
taste in polite literature."

"Monsieur, a man in my profession does not attain even to my humble
eminence if he be not something else than a professional. He must study
mankind wherever they are described, even in les romans. To return to
Victor de Mauleon. Though he was a 'sportman,' a gambler, a Don Juan, a
duel list, nothing was ever said against his honour. On the