y
chance for us sent you here."

"I hope you will find it so, madame. I think it is well understood
between us that you undertake to manage all my little domestic matters
for me. I shall come and superintend the removal of my goods. Adieu!"

So saying, Rodolph left the lodge. The results of his visit to the house
in the Rue du Temple were highly important, both as regarded the
solution of the deep mystery he so ardently desired to unravel, and also
as affording a wide field for the exercise of his earnest endeavours to
do good and to prevent evil. After mature calculation, he considered
himself to have achieved the following results:

First, he had ascertained that Mlle. Rigolette was in possession of the
address of Germain, the Schoolmaster's son. Secondly, a young female,
who, from appearances, might unhappily be the Marquise d'Harville, had
made an appointment with the commandant for the morrow,--perhaps to her
own utter ruin and disgrace; and Rodolph had (as we have before
mentioned) numerous reasons for wishing to preserve the honour and peace
of one for whom he felt so lively an interest as he took in all
concerning M. d'Harville. An honest and industrious artisan, crushed by
the deepest misery, was, with his whole family, about to be turned into
the streets through the means of Bras Rouge. Further, Rodolph had
undesignedly caught a glimpse of an adventure in which the charlatan
Cesar Bradamanti (possibly Polidori) and a female, evidently of rank and
fashion, were the principal actors. And, finally, La Chouette, having
lately quitted the hospital, where she had been since the affair in the
Allee des Veuves, had reappeared on the stage, and was evidently engaged
in some underhand proceedings with the fortune-teller and female
money-lender who occupied the second floor of the house.

Having carefully noted down all these particulars, Rodolph returned to
his house, Rue Plumet, deferring till the following day his visit to the
notary, Jacques Ferrand.

It will be no doubt fresh in the memory of our readers, that on this
same evening Rodolph was engaged to be present at a grand ball given by
the ambassador of ----. Before following our hero in this new excursion,
let us cast a retrospective glance on Tom and Sarah,--personages of the
greatest importance in the development of this history.

CHAPTER XXV.

TOM AND SARAH.

Sarah Seyton, widow of Count Macgregor, and at this time thirty-six or
thirty-seven