fellow, if you've
been told of any game you may look and look for it, the bird's flown
already!"

Once outside, when Rosemonde had prevailed on Hyacinthe to see her home,
they hastened to get into the brougham, which was waiting for them, for
near at hand they perceived Silviane's landau, with the majestic coachman
motionless on his box, while Duvillard, Gerard, and Duthil still stood
waiting on the curbstone. They had been there for nearly twenty minutes
already, in the semi-darkness of that outer boulevard, where all the
vices of the poor districts of Paris were on the prowl. They had been
jostled by drunkards; and shadowy women brushed against them as they went
by whispering beneath the oaths and blows of bullies. And there were
couples seeking the darkness under the trees, and lingering on the
benches there; while all around were low taverns and dirty lodging-houses
and places of ill-fame. All the human degradation which till break of day
swarms in the black mud of this part of Paris, enveloped the three men,
giving them the horrors, and yet neither the Baron nor Gerard nor Duthil
was willing to go off. Each hoped that he would tire out the others, and
take Silviane home when she should at last appear.

But after a time the Baron grew impatient, and said to the coachman:
"Jules, go and see why madame doesn't come."

"But the horses, Monsieur le Baron?"

"Oh! they will be all right, we are here."

A fine drizzle had begun to fall; and the wait went on again as if it
would never finish. But an unexpected meeting gave them momentary
occupation. A shadowy form, something which seemed to be a thin,
black-skirted woman, brushed against them. And all of a sudden they were
surprised to find it was a priest.

"What, is it you, Monsieur l'Abbe Froment?" exclaimed Gerard. "At this
time of night? And in this part of Paris?"

Thereupon Pierre, without venturing either to express his own
astonishment at finding them there themselves, or to ask them what they
were doing, explained that he had been belated through accompanying Abbe
Rose on a visit to a night refuge. Ah! to think of all the frightful want
which at last drifted to those pestilential dormitories where the stench
had almost made him faint! To think of all the weariness and despair
which there sank into the slumber of utter prostration, like that of
beasts falling to the ground to sleep off the abominations of life! No
name could be given to the promiscuity; po