ome, haughty, and felt convinced he had fled to England. He thought
he had discovered him in a young _emigre_ named Maubel, who, having come
back to France and been denounced by his host, had been arrested in an
inn at Passy; Fouquier-Tinville was in charge of the prosecution,--among
a thousand others. Letters had been found on him which the accusation
regarded as proofs of a plot concocted between Maubel and the agents of
Pitt, but which were in fact only letters written to the _emigre_ by a
banking-house in London which he had entrusted with certain funds.
Maubel, who was young and good-looking, seemed to be mainly occupied in
affairs of gallantry. His pocket-book afforded a clue to some
correspondence with Spain, then at war with France; but these
communications were really of a purely private nature, and if the court
of preliminary enquiry did not ignore the bill, it was only in virtue of
the maxim that justice should never be in too great a hurry to release a
prisoner.

Gamelin was handed a report of Maubel's first semi-private examination
and he was struck by what it revealed of the young man's character,
which he took to agree with what he believed to be that of Elodie's
betrayer. Thereafter he spent long hours in the private room of the
Clerk of the Court, poring eagerly over the papers relating to this
case. His suspicion received a remarkable confirmation on his
discovering in a note-book belonging to the _emigre_, but long out of
date, the address of the _Amour peintre_, in company, it is true, with
those of the _Green Monkey_, the _Dauphin's Head_, and several more
print and picture shops. But when he was informed that in this same
note-book had been found three or four petals of a red carnation
carefully wrapped in a piece of silk paper, remembering how the red
carnation was Elodie's favourite flower, the one she cultivated on her
window-sill, wore in her hair and used to give (he had reason to know)
as a love-token, Evariste's last doubts vanished. Being now convinced he
knew the facts, he resolved to question Elodie, though without letting
her know the circumstances that had led him to discover the culprit.

As he was climbing the stairs to his lodgings, he perceived even on the
lower landings a stifling smell of fruit, and on reaching the studio,
found Elodie helping the _citoyenne_ Gamelin to make quince preserve.
While the old housewife was kindling the stove and turning over in her
mind ways of savin