ad led the vilest of lives there.

"But who told you all that? How do you know all that?" cried Constance,
who felt full of anxiety.

He waved his arm with a vague, sweeping gesture, as if to take in
all the surrounding atmosphere, the whole house. He knew those things
because they were things pertaining to the place, which people had told
him of, or which he had guessed. He could no longer remember exactly how
they had reached him. But he knew them well.

"You understand," said he, "when one has been in a place for more than
thirty years, things end by coming to one naturally. I know everything,
everything."

Constance started and deep silence fell. He, with his eyes fixed on the
embers, had sunk back into the dolorous past. She reflected that it was,
after all, preferable that the position should be perfectly plain. Since
he was acquainted with everything, it was only needful that she,
with all determination and bravery, should utilize him as her docile
instrument.

"Alexandre-Honore, the child of Rougemont," she said. "Yes! that is the
young man whom I have at last found again. But are you also aware of the
steps which I took twelve years ago, when I despaired of finding him,
and actually thought him dead?"

Morange nodded affirmatively, and she again went on speaking, relating
that she had long since renounced her old plans, when all at once
destiny had revealed itself to her.

"Imagine a flash of lightning!" she exclaimed. "It was on the morning
of the day when you found me so moved! My sister-in-law, Seraphine, who
does not call on me four times a year, came here, to my great surprise,
at ten o'clock. She has become very strange, as you are aware, and I did
not at first pay any attention to the story which she began to relate to
me--the story of a young man whom she had become acquainted with through
some lady--an unfortunate young man who had been spoilt by bad company,
and whom one might save by a little help. Then what a blow it was,
my friend, when she all at once spoke out plainly, and told me of
the discovery which she had made by chance. I tell you, it is destiny
awaking and striking!"

The story was indeed curious. Prematurely aged though she was,
Seraphine, amid her growing insanity, continued to lead a wild, rackety
life, and the strangest stories were related of her. A singular caprice
of hers, given her own viciousness, was to join, as a lady patroness,
a society whose purpose was to succor a