"I cannot oblige you. My interest in this poor lady is not very strong,
though I should be willing to serve her, and glad to know that she were
alive. I have now business on hand which interests me much more, and
which will take me from Paris, but not in the direction of Aix."

"If I wrote to my employer, and got him to raise the reward to some
higher amount, that might make it worth your while?"

"I should still answer that my affairs will not permit such a journey.
But if there be any chance of tracing Louise Duval at Aix,--and there
may be,--you would succeed quite as well as I should. You must judge for
yourself if it be worth your trouble to attempt such a task; and if you
do attempt it, and do succeed, pray let me know.--A line to my office
will reach me for some little time, even if I am absent from Paris.
Adieu, Monsieur Lamb."

Here M. Lebeau Lose and departed.

Graham relapsed into thought; but a train of thought much more active,
much more concentred than before. "No," thus ran his meditations,--"no,
it would not be safe to employ that man further. The reasons that forbid
me to offer any very high reward for the discovery of this woman operate
still more strongly against tendering to her own relation a sum that
might indeed secure his aid, but would unquestionably arouse his
suspicions, and perhaps drag into light all that must be concealed.
Oh, this cruel mission! I am, indeed, an impostor to myself till it be
fulfilled. I will go to Aix, and take Renard with me. I am impatient
till I set out, but I cannot quit Paris without once more seeing Isaura.
She consents to relinquish the stage; surely I could wean her too from
intimate friendship with a woman whose genius has so fatal an effect
upon enthusiastic minds. And then--and then?"

He fell into a delightful revery; and contemplating Isaura as his future
wife, he surrounded her sweet image with all those attributes of
dignity and respect with which an Englishman is accustomed to invest the
destined bearer of his name, the gentle sovereign of his household,
the sacred mother of his children. In this picture the more brilliant
qualities of Isaura found, perhaps, but faint presentation. Her glow of
sentiment, her play of fancy, her artistic yearnings for truths remote,
for the invisible fairyland of beautiful romance, receded into the
background of the picture. It was all these, no doubt, that had so
strengthened and enriched the love at first sight, which