gnize her father's voice asking the concierge to open the door,
and to hear the heavy gate of the adjoining house closing behind
him.

"Saved!" she said.

It was none too soon. M. Desormeaux had just been compelled to
yield; and the commissary of police was walking in.

IV

The commissaries of police of Paris, as a general thing, are no
simpletons; and, if they are ever taken in, it is because it has
suited them to be taken in.

Their modest title covers the most important, perhaps, of
magistracies, almost the only one known to the lower classes; an
enormous power, and an influence so decisive, that the most sensible
statesman of the reign of Louis Philippe ventured once to say, "Give
me twenty good commissaries of police in Paris, and I'll undertake
to suppress any government: net profit, one hundred millions."

Parisian above all, the commissary has had ample time to study his
ground when he was yet only a peace-officer. The dark side of the
most brilliant lives has no mysteries for him. He has received the
strangest confidences: he has listened to the most astounding
confessions. He knows how low humanity can stoop, and what
aberrations there are in brains apparently the soundest. The
work woman whom her husband beats, and the great lady whom her husband
cheats, have both come to him. He has been sent for by the
shop-keeper whom his wife deceives, and by the millionaire who has
been blackmailed. To his office, as to a lay confessional, all
passions fatally lead. In his presence the dirty linen of two
millions of people is washed _en famille_.

A Paris commissary of police, who after ten years' practice, could
retain an illusion, believe in something, or be astonished at any
thing in the world, would be but a fool. If he is still capable
of some emotion, he is a good man.

The one who had just walked into M. Favoral's apartment was already
past middle age, colder than ice, and yet kindly, but of that
commonplace kindliness which frightens like the executioner's
politeness at the scaffold.

He required but a single glance of his small but clear eyes to
decipher the physiognomies of all these worthy people standing
around the disordered table. And beckoning to the agents who
accompanied him to stop at the door,--"Monsieur Vincent Favoral?"
he inquired. The cashier's guests, M. Desormeaux excepted,
seemed stricken with stupor. Each one felt as if he had a share
of the disgrace of this police