eak
to her.

Carabine rose and went out to find Madame Nourrisson, decently veiled
with black lace.

"Well, child, am I to go to your house? Has he taken the hook?"

"Yes, mother; and the pistol is so fully loaded, that my only fear is
that it will burst," said Carabine.

About an hour later, Montes, Cydalise, and Carabine, returning from
the _Rocher de Cancale_, entered Carabine's little sitting-room in the
Rue Saint-Georges. Madame Nourrisson was sitting in an armchair by the
fire.

"Here is my worthy old aunt," said Carabine.

"Yes, child, I came in person to fetch my little allowance. You would
have forgotten me, though you are kind-hearted, and I have some bills
to pay to-morrow. Buying and selling clothes, I am always short of
cash. Who is this at your heels? The gentleman looks very much put out
about something."

The dreadful Madame Nourrisson, at this moment so completely disguised
as to look like a respectable old body, rose to embrace Carabine, one
of the hundred and odd courtesans she had launched on their horrible
career of vice.

"He is an Othello who is not to be taken in, whom I have the honor of
introducing to you--Monsieur le Baron Montes de Montejanos."

"Oh! I have heard him talked about, and know his name.--You are
nicknamed Combabus, because you love but one woman, and in Paris, that
is the same as loving no one at all. And is it by chance the object of
your affections who is fretting you? Madame Marneffe, Crevel's woman?
I tell you what, my dear sir, you may bless your stars instead of
cursing them. She is a good-for-nothing baggage, is that little woman.
I know her tricks!"

"Get along," said Carabine, into whose hand Madame Nourrisson had
slipped a note while embracing her, "you do not know your Brazilians.
They are wrong-headed creatures that insist on being impaled through
the heart. The more jealous they are, the more jealous they want to
be. Monsieur talks of dealing death all round, but he will kill nobody
because he is in love.--However, I have brought him here to give him
the proofs of his discomfiture, which I have got from that little
Steinbock."

Montes was drunk; he listened as if the women were talking about
somebody else.

Carabine went to take off her velvet wrap, and read a facsimile of a
note, as follows:--

"DEAR PUSS.--He dines with Popinot this evening, and will come
to fetch me from the Opera at eleven. I shall go out at about
half-past five and coun