started on again,
missed the way, wandered about, and in trying to follow other
directions, lost herself entirely. She walked on and on, and was just
going to hail a cab when she saw the Seine. Then she decided to walk
along the quays, and in about an hour she reached the dark, dirty lane
called Rue du Sauvage.

When she came to the number she was seeking, she was so excited that she
stood before the door unable to move another step. Poulet was there, in
that house! Her hands and knees trembled violently, and it was some
moments before she could enter and walk along the passage to the
doorkeeper's box.

"Will you go and tell M. Paul de Lamare that an old lady friend of his
mother's, is waiting to see him?" she said, slipping a piece of money
into the man's hand.

"He does not live here now, madame," answered the doorkeeper.

She started.

"Ah! Where--where is he living now?" she gasped.

"I do not know."

She felt stunned, and it was some time before she could speak again.

"When did he leave?" she asked at last, controlling herself by a violent
effort.

The man was quite ready to tell her all he knew.

"About a fortnight ago," he replied. "They just walked out of the house
one evening and didn't come back. They owed all over the neighborhood,
so you may guess they didn't leave any address."

Tongues of flame were dancing before Jeanne's eyes, as if a gun were
being fired off close to her face; but she wanted to find Poulet, and
that kept her up and made her stand opposite the doorkeeper, as if she
were calmly thinking.

"Then he did not say anything when he left?"

"No, nothing at all; they went away to get out of paying their debts."

"But he will have to send for his letters."

"He'll send a good many times before he gets them, then; besides, they
didn't have ten in a twelvemonth, though I took them up one two days
before they left."

That must have been the one she sent.

"Listen," she said, hastily. "I am his mother, and I have come to look
for him. Here are ten francs for yourself. If you hear anything from or
about him, let me know at once at the Hotel de Normandie, Rue du Havre,
and you shall be well paid for your trouble."

"You may depend upon me, madame," answered the doorkeeper; and Jeanne
went away.

She hastened along the streets as if she were bent on an important
mission, but she was not looking or caring whither she was going. She
walked close to the walls, pushed and buffeted