ust be aware, of not the slightest legal
weight; no more than if your pretty sister, Mademoiselle Adeline, who,
I must be permitted to observe, is not altogether, I suspect, a
stranger to this affair----Hear me out, Messieurs, if you please: I
say your excuse has no more legal validity, than if your sister had
counselled you to commit this felony. Now, mark me, young man: it is
just upon five o'clock. At half-past seven precisely, I shall go
before a magistrate, and cause a warrant to be issued for your
apprehension. To-morrow morning, consequently, the brother of
Mademoiselle le Blanc will either be an incarcerated felon, or, which
will suit me just as well, a proclaimed fugitive from justice.'

'One moment--one word, for the love of Heaven, before you go!'
exclaimed Eugene. 'Is there any mode, any means whereby Edouard may be
rescued from this frightful, this unmerited calamity--this
irretrievable ruin?'

'Yes,' rejoined M. de Veron, pausing for an instant on the outer
threshold, 'there is one mode, Eugene, and only one. What it is, you
do not require to be told. I shall dine in town to-day; at seven, I
shall look in at the church of Notre Dame, and remain there precisely
twenty minutes. After that, repentance will be too late.'

Eugene was in despair, for it was quite clear that Adeline must be
given up--Adeline, whose myriad charms and graces rose upon his
imagination in tenfold greater lustre than before, now that he was
about to lose her for ever! But there was plainly no help for it; and
after a brief, agitated consultation, the young men left the office to
join Madame and Mademoiselle le Blanc at the Widow Carson's, in the
Grande Rue, or Rue de Paris, as the only decent street in
Havre-de-Grace was at that time indifferently named, both for the
purpose of communicating the untoward state of affairs, and that
Eugene might take a lingering, last farewell of Adeline.

Before accompanying them thither, it is necessary to say a few words
of this Madame Carson, who is about to play a very singular part in
this little drama. She was a gay, well-looking, symmetrically-shaped
young widow, who kept a confectioner's shop in the said Grande Rue,
and officiated as her own _dame du comptoir_. Her good-looks,
coquettishly-gracious smiles, and unvarying good temper, rendered her
establishment much more attractive--it was by no means a brilliant
affair in itself--than it would otherwise have been. Madame Carson
was, in a ta