e was too late. The gentleman had left that
morning for Frankfort, by the 10.45 train, with an elderly lady, and a
remarkably pretty girl.

"Sure of his game now, M. de Brevan left immediately for Frankfort,
convinced that Sarah's brilliant beauty would guide him like a star. But
he hunted in vain all over town, inquiring at the hotels, and bothering
everybody with his questions. He found no trace of the fugitives.

"When he returned to his lodgings that night, he wept.

"Never in his life had he fancied himself half so unhappy. In losing
Sarah, he thought he had lost everything. During the five months of
their intimacy, she had gained such complete ascendency over him, that
now, when he was left to his own strength, he felt like a lost child,
having no thought and no resolution.

"What was to become of him, now that this woman was no longer there
to sustain and inspire him,--that woman with the marvellous talent for
intrigue, the matchless courage that shrank from nothing, and the
energy which sufficed for everything? Sarah had, besides, filled his
imagination with such magnificent hopes, and opened before his covetous
eyes such a vast horizon of enjoyment, that he had come to look upon
things as pitiful, which would formerly have satisfied his highest
wishes. Should he, after having dreamed of those glorious achievements
by which millions are won in a day, sink back again into the meanness
of petty thefts? His heart turned from that prospect with unspeakable
loathing; and yet what was he to do?

"He knew, that, if he returned to Paris, matters would not be very
pleasant for him there. His creditors, made restless by his prolonged
absence, would fall upon him instantly. How could he induce them to
wait? Where could he get the money to pay them, at least, a percentage
of his dues? How would he support himself? Were all of his dark works to
be useless? Was he to be shipwrecked before ever seeing even the distant
port?

"Nevertheless, he returned to Paris, faced the storm, passed through
the crisis, and resumed his miserable life, associating with another
adventurer like himself, and succeeding thus, by immensely hard work,
in maintaining his existence and his assumed name. Ah! if our honest
friends could but know what misery, what humiliations and anxieties are
hid beneath that false splendor of high life, which they often envy,
they would think themselves fully avenged.

"It is certain that Maxime de Brevan foun