rable to undeceive me than to usurp a conversation which...."

"Madame, I dared not. I feared to alarm you--I hoped to find some means
of escape, and...."

"_Mon Dieu_! what means? How are you to escape as it is? How leave the
carriage without being seen by my servants?"

I had not thought of this, nor of the dilemma in which my presence must
place her.

"I can open the door softly," said I, "and jump out unperceived."

"Impossible, at the pace we are going! You would break your neck."

I shook my head, and laughed bitterly.

"Have no fear of that, Madame," I said. "Those who least value their
necks never happen to break them. See, I can spring out as we pass the
next turning, and be out of sight in a moment."

"Indeed, I will not permit it. Oh, dear! we have already reached the
Faubourg St. Germain. Stay--I have an idea I Do you know what o'clock
it is?"

"I don't know how long I may have slept; but I think it must be quite
three."

"_Bien_! The Countess de Blois has a ball to-night, and her visitors are
sure not to disperse before four or five. My sister is there. I will
send in to ask if she has yet gone home, and when the carriage stops you
can slip out. Here is the Rue de Bac, and the door of her hotel is yet
surrounded with equipages."

And with this, she let down a front window, desired the coachman to
stop, leaned forward so as to hide me completely, and sent in her
footman with the message. When the man had fairly entered the hall, she
turned to me and said:--

"Now, Monsieur, fly! It is your only chance."

"I go, Madame; but before going, suffer me to assure you that I know
neither your name, nor that of the person for whom you mistook me--that
I have no idea of your place of residence--that I should not know you if
I saw you again to-morrow--in short, that you are to me as entirely a
stranger as if this adventure had never happened."

"Monsieur, I thank you for the assurance; but I see the servant
returning. Pray, begone!"

I sprang out without another word, and, never once looking back, darted
down a neighboring street and waited in the shadow of a doorway till I
thought the carriage must be out of sight.

The night was now fine, the moon was up, and the sky was full of stars.
But I heeded nothing, save my own perplexed and painful thoughts.
Absorbed in these, I followed the course of the Rue du Bac till I came
to the Pont National. There my steps were arrested by the sight of the
eddyin