he had been executed. _Trompe-la-Mort_ was
the only person who knew of his pal's connection with the girl, at that
time a milliner.

"I am your young man's boss," the boarder at Madame Vauquer's had told
her, having sent for her to meet him at the Jardin des Plantes. "He
may have mentioned me to you, my dear.--Any one who plays me false dies
within a year; on the other hand, those who are true to me have nothing
to fear from me. I am staunch through thick and thin, and would die
without saying a word that would compromise anybody I wish well to.
Stick to me as a soul sticks to the Devil, and you will find the benefit
of it. I promised your poor Auguste that you should be happy; he wanted
to make you a rich woman, and he got scragged for your sake.

"Don't cry; listen to me. No one in the world knows that you were
mistress to a convict, to the murderer they choked off last Saturday;
and I shall never tell. You are two-and-twenty, and pretty, and you have
twenty-six thousand francs of your own; forget Auguste and get married;
be an honest woman if you can. In return for peace and quiet, I only
ask you to serve me now and then, me, and any one I may send you, but
without stopping to think. I will never ask you to do anything that can
get you into trouble, you or your children, or your husband, if you get
one, or your family.

"In my line of life I often want a safe place to talk in or to hide in.
Or I may want a trusty woman to carry a letter or do an errand. You
will be one of my letter-boxes, one of my porters' lodges, one of my
messengers, neither more nor less.

"You are too red-haired; Auguste and I used to call you la Rousse; you
can keep that name. My aunt, an old-clothes dealer at the Temple, who
will come and see you, is the only person in the world you are to obey;
tell her everything that happens to you; she will find you a husband,
and be very useful to you."

And thus the bargain was struck, a diabolical compact like that which
had for so long bound Prudence Servien to Jacques Collin, and which the
man never failed to tighten; for, like the Devil, he had a passion for
recruiting.

In about 1821 Jacques Collin found la Rousse a husband in the person of
the chief shopman under a rich wholesale tin merchant. This head-clerk,
having purchased his master's house of business, was now a prosperous
man, the father of two children, and one of the district Maire's
deputies. La Rousse, now Madame Prelard, had neve