tion shall not be repeated. Gratefully I accept
the friendship you deign to tender me. You bid me forget the words I
uttered. Promise in turn that you will forget them--or at least consider
them withdrawn. You will receive me still as friend?"

"As friend, surely: yes. Do we not both need friends?" She held out
her hand as she spoke; he bent over it, kissed it with respect, and the
interview thus closed.

CHAPTER V.

It was late in the evening that day when a man who had the appearance
of a decent bourgeois, in the lower grades of that comprehensive class,
entered one of the streets in the Faubourg Montmartre, tenanted chiefly
by artisans. He paused at the open doorway of a tall narrow house, and
drew back as he heard footsteps descending a very gloomy staircase.

The light from a gas lamp on the street fell full on the face of the
person thus quitting the house--the face of a young and handsome man,
dressed with the quiet elegance which betokened one of higher rank
or fashion than that neighbourhood was habituated to find among its
visitors. The first comer retreated promptly into the shade, and, as by
sudden impulse, drew his hat low down over his eyes.

The other man did not, however, observe him, went his way with a quick
step along the street, and entered another house some yards distant.

"What can that pious Bourbonite do here?" muttered the first comer. "Can
he be a conspirator? Diable! 'tis as dark as Erebus on that staircase."

Taking cautious hold of the banister, the man now ascended the stairs.
On the landing of the first floor there was a gas lamp which threw
upward a faint ray that finally died at the third story. But at that
third story the man's journey ended; he pulled a bell at the door to the
right, and in another moment or so the door was opened by a young woman
of twenty-eight or thirty, dressed very simply, but with a certain
neatness not often seen in the wives of artisans in the Faubourg
Montmartre. Her face, which, though pale and delicate, retained much
of the beauty of youth, became clouded as she recognised the visitor;
evidently the visit was not welcome to her.

"Monsieur Lebeau again!" she exclaimed, shrinking back.

"At your service, chere dame. The goodman is of course at home? Ah,
I catch sight of him," and sliding by the woman, M. Lebeau passed the
narrow lobby in which she stood, through the open door conducting into
the room in which Armand Monnier was seated, his chi