d went off to the mayor's office, saying
to himself, "Can my mother suspect my secret?"

He passed through the rue du Val-Noble, where Mademoiselle Cormon
lived,--a little pleasure which he gave himself every morning, thinking,
as usual, a variety of fanciful things:--

"How little she knows that a young man is passing before her house who
loves her well, who would be faithful to her, who would never cause
her any grief; who would leave her the entire management of her fortune
without interference. Good God! what fatality! here, side by side, in
the same town, are two persons in our mutual condition, and yet nothing
can bring them together. Suppose I were to speak to her this evening?"

During this time Suzanne had returned to her mother's house thinking of
Athanase; and, like many other women who have longed to help an adored
man beyond the limit of human powers, she felt herself capable of making
her body a stepping-stone on which he could rise to attain his throne.

It is now necessary to enter the house of this old maid toward whom so
many interests are converging, where the actors in this scene, with
the exception of Suzanne, were all to meet this very evening. As for
Suzanne, that handsome individual bold enough to burn her ships like
Alexander at her start in life, and to begin the battle by a falsehood,
she disappears from the stage, having introduced upon it a violent
element of interest. Her utmost wishes were gratified. She quitted her
native town a few days later, well supplied with money and good clothes,
among which was a fine dress of green reps and a charming green bonnet
lined with pink, the gift of Monsieur de Valois,--a present which she
preferred to all the rest, even the money. If the chevalier had gone
to Paris in the days of her future brilliancy, she would certainly have
left every one for him. Like the chaste Susannah of the Bible, whom the
Elders hardly saw, she established herself joyously and full of hope in
Paris, while all Alencon was deploring her misfortunes, for which the
ladies of two Societies (Charity and Maternity) manifested the liveliest
sympathy. Though Suzanne is a fair specimen of those handsome Norman
women whom a learned physician reckons as comprising one third of her
fallen class whom our monstrous Paris absorbs, it must be stated that
she remained in the upper and more decent regions of gallantry. At an
epoch when, as Monsieur de Valois said, Woman no longer existed, she