e here?"

"Not to a soul," he answered, eagerly. "She told me she has no friends
nearer than Australia. That is a great way off."

"And has she had no letters?" I asked.

"Not one," he replied. "She has neither written nor received a single
letter."

"But how did you come across her?" I inquired. "She did not fall from
the skies, I suppose. How was it she came to live in this
out-of-the-world place with you?"

Tardif smoked his imaginary pipe with great perseverance for some
minutes, his face overcast with thought. But presently it cleared, and
he turned to me with a frank smile.

"I'll tell you all about it, Dr. Martin," he said. "You know the
Seigneur was in London last autumn, and there was a little difficulty in
the Court of Chefs Plaids here, about an ordonnance we could not agree
over, and I went across to London to see the Seigneur for myself. It was
in coming back I met with Mam'zelle Ollivier. I was paying my fare at
Waterloo station--the omnibus-fare, I mean--and I was turning away, when
I heard the man speak grumblingly. I thought it was at me, and I looked
back, and there she stood before him, looking scared and frightened at
his rough words. Doctor, I never could bear to see any soft, tender,
young thing in trouble. If it's nothing but a little bird that has
fallen out of its warm nest, or a lamb slipped down among the cliffs, I
feel as if I could risk my life to put them back again in some safe
place. Yes, and I have done it scores of times, when I dared not let my
poor mother know. Well, there stood mam'zelle, pale and trembling, with
the tears ready to fall in her eyes; just such a soft, poor, tender soul
as my little wife used to be. You remember my little wife, Dr. Martin?"

I only nodded as he looked at me.

"Just such another," he went on; "only this one was a lady, and less
able to take care of herself. Her trouble was nothing but the
omnibus-fare, and she had no change, nothing but an Australian
sovereign; so I paid it for her. I kept pretty near her about the
station while she was buying her ticket, for I overheard two young men,
who were roaming up and down, say as they looked at her, 'Pas de gants,
et des souliers de velours!' That was true; she had no gloves on her
hands, and her little feet had nothing on but some velvet slippers, all
wet and muddy with the dirty streets. So I walked up to her, as if I
had been her servant, you understand, and put her into a carriage, and
stood at th