the arch. The porter was on the threshold of his lodge.

"Monsieur Wilson?" asked M. Lecoq.

"He is out."

"I will speak to Madame, then."

"She is also out."

"Very well. Only, as I must positively speak with Madame Wilson,
I'm going upstairs."

The porter seemed about to resist him by force; but, as Lecoq now
called in his men, he thought better of it and kept quiet.

M. Lecoq posted six of his men in the court, in such a position
that they could be easily seen from the windows on the first floor,
and instructed the others to place themselves on the opposite
sidewalk, telling them to look ostentatiously at the house. These
measures taken, he returned to the porter.

"Attend to me, my man. When your master, who has gone out, comes
in again, beware that you don't tell him that we are upstairs; a
single word would get you into terribly hot water--"

"I am blind," he answered, "and deaf."

"How many servants are there in the house?"

"Three; but they have all gone out."

The detective then took M. Plantat by the arm, and holding him
firmly:

"You see, my dear friend," said he, "the game is ours. Come along
--and in Laurence's name, have courage!"

XXVII

All M. Lecoq's anticipations were realized. Laurence was not dead,
and her letter to her parents was an odious trick. It was really
she who lived in the house as Mme. Wilson. How had the lovely
young girl, so much beloved by the old justice, come to such a
dreadful extremity? The logic of life, alas, fatally enchains all
our determinations to each other. Often an indifferent action,
little wrongful in itself, is the beginning of an atrocious crime.
Each of our new resolutions depends upon those which have preceded
it, and is their logical sequence just as the sum-total is the
product of the added figures. Woe to him who, being seized with a
dizziness at the brink of the abyss, does not fly as fast as
possible, without turning his head; for soon, yielding to an
irresistible attraction, he approaches, braves the danger, slips,
and is lost. Whatever thereafter he does or attempts he will roll
down the faster, until he reaches the very bottom of the gulf.

Tremorel had by no means the implacable character of an assassin;
he was only feeble and cowardly; yet he had committed abominable
crimes. All his guilt came from the first feeling of envy with
which he regarded Sauvresy, and which he had not taken the pains
to subd