r a faithless sweetheart."

Marie was reassured.

"I should think not," she said, with a sympathetic and defiant sniff. "I
had the very same experience last Sunday, when Phillippe--the grocer's
boy at the corner, you know--walked along the Corniche Road with a chit
of a girl out of a shop. She thinks herself better than we are because
she stands behind a counter, and I am sure she made eyes at Phillippe
one day when his master sent him there on an errand."

"Phillippe must have bad taste," broke in Edith. "But I am sorry I must
hasten away. If you girls will tell me quickly all the other people that
live in that house I will give you two francs each. That is all the
money I have got."

She produced the coins, which she easily distinguished from the gold in
her pocket by their size. She knew that to appear too well supplied with
money in that neighbourhood was to court danger, if not disaster, to her
undertaking.

Both girls eagerly seized the forty-sous pieces.

"Oh, on the second floor," said Marie, "I am afraid you will find your
young man. They are a funny couple that live there. They only came here
on Monday. When did your young man leave you?"

"I saw him on Saturday."

"Where?"

This was a poser, but Miss Talbot answered desperately:

"At Lyon."

"What is he like?"

Another haphazard shot.

"He is tall and dark, and, oh! so good-looking, with a beautifully white
skin and a pink complexion."

"That is he!" cried both girls together.

"The scoundrel! But tell me," went on Edith, whose excitement was
readily construed as the pangs of jealousy, "who is the creature that
lives with him?"

"We think she is a music-hall artiste," replied Marie. "At least, that
is what the people say. I have not heard yet what hall she appears in.
They say she is very pretty. Are you going to throw vitriol over her?"

"Not I," said Edith, with a fine scorn. "Do they live there alone?"

"Yes, quite alone. They rent the place from Pere Didon. He owns most of
the houses in this street, you know, and is a regular skinflint. He
won't let any one get behind with their rent for an hour. He is old, so
old that you would not think that he could live another week, yet he is
that keen after his francs you would imagine he was a young man anxious
to get money for a gay life. You ought to have heard the row here last
Saturday when he turned the people out from their rooms where your lover
now lives with his mistress. It was ter