"What is your name?" said one. "Where do you live? Have you just come
here? Are you staying with old Mother Peter?"

With difficulty Edith caught the drift of their questions. But she
answered smilingly--

"No, I do not live here, and I do not know Mother Peter. But I want you
to tell me who lives in the house opposite?"

Her Parisian French greatly surprised the two girls, who giggled at each
other, and one of them cried--

"Oh, here's a lark!"

But they scented an intrigue, and were quite ready to give all the
information in their power.

"A lot of people live there," said the elder one, trying, with the ready
tact of her nation, to accommodate her words to the understanding of the
stranger. "It all depends who you want to know about. On the ground
floor is Josef the barber and his wife, with three little ones. It
cannot be them, I am sure, and it cannot be Monsieur Ducrot, who is
their lodger, for he is seventy years old and a sacristan in the Church
of the Sacred Heart. Then on the first floor there are three men, not a
woman amongst them. One is a bill-sticker, another a fisherman, and the
third a waiter in the Cafe du Midi. I do not know their proper names. We
call the bill-sticker 'Paste-pot,' and the fisherman 'Crab.' The waiter
is called 'Thomas' in the cafe, but when a letter comes for him it is in
another name. Then, on the second floor--by the way, Marie, who is it
that lives on the second floor?"

Edith with difficulty restrained her excitement. She felt that if only
these youngsters rattled on a little longer she might gain some valuable
information.

Marie, thus appealed to, was evidently of a more cautious temperament
than her companion.

"If the young lady will tell us why she wants to know, we may be able to
help her?" she stipulated.

"Certainly," cried Edith, instantly resolving to pursue the tactics of
the penny novelette. "I have been deserted. My lover has been taken away
from me by another woman--at least, that is what I am informed. I do not
wish to make any trouble about it. There are plenty as good men as he
left in the world; but, on the other hand, I must not act unjustly. I
have been told that he lives in this house--that he is living with her
here at this moment, in fact. If I can make sure of it, I will go away
and never set eyes on him again unless by chance, and then you may be
sure I will take no notice of him. I am not one of those silly girls who
break their hearts ove