krupt; he and his
wife ran away to save themselves; the establishment was broken up. It
was a bubble, m'sieur, and it burst comme ca."

My driver clapped his hands together lightly, as though Monsieur
Perrier's bubble needed very little pressure to disperse it.

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, "but what became of Oli--of the young
English lady, and the child?"

"Ah, m'sieur!" he said, "I do not know. I do not live in Noireau, but I
pass to and fro from Falaise in La Petite Vitesse. She has not returned
in my omnibus, that is all I know. But she could go to Granville, or to
Caen. There are other omnibuses, you see. Somebody will tell you down
there."

For three or four miles before us there lay a road as straight as a
rule, ending in a small cluster of lights glimmering in the bottom of a
valley, into which we were descending with great precaution on the part
of the driver and his team. That was Noireau. But already my
exhilaration was exchanged for profound anxiety. I extorted from the
Norman all the information he possessed concerning the bankrupt; it was
not much, and it only served to heighten my solicitude.

It was nearly eleven o'clock before we entered the town; but I learned a
few more particulars from the middle-aged woman in the omnibus bureau.
She recollected the name of Miss Ellen Martineau, and her arrival; and
she described her with the accuracy and faithfulness of a woman. If she
were not Olivia herself, she must be her very counterpart. But who was
the child, a girl of nine or ten years of age, who had accompanied her?
It was too late to learn any more about them. The landlady of the hotel
confirmed all I had heard, and added several items of information.
Monsieur Perrier and his wife had imposed upon several English families,
and had succeeded in getting dozens of English pupils, so she assured
me, who had been scattered over the country, Heaven only knew where,
when the school was broken up, about a month ago.

I started out early the next morning to find the Rue de Grace, where the
inscription on my photographic view of the premises represented them as
situated. The town was in the condition of a provincial town in England
about a century ago. The streets were as dirty as the total absence of
drains and scavengers could make them, and the cleanest path was up the
kennel in the centre. The filth of the houses was washed down into them
by pipes, with little cisterns at each story, and under almost eve