At the foot of the staircase he completed his examination of the outside of his correspondence.  It was just what was always awaiting him on his return from his voyages.

He was about to put the package in his pocket and continue on his way when his attention was attracted by a voluminous envelope in an unknown handwriting, registered in Paris....

Curiosity made him open it immediately and he found in his hand a regular sheaf of loose leaves, a long account that far exceeded the limits of a letter.  He looked at the engraved letter-head and then at the signature.  The writer was a lawyer in Paris, and Ferragut suspected by the luxurious paper and address that he must be a celebrated maitre.  He even recalled having run across his name somewhere in the newspapers.

Then and there he began reading the first page, anxious to know why this distinguished personage had written to him.  But he had scarcely run his eyes over some of the sheets before he stopped his reading.  He had come across the name of Freya Talberg.  This lawyer had been her defender before the Council of War.

Ferragut hastened to put the letter in a safe place, and curb his impatience.  He felt that necessity for silent isolation and absolute solitude which a reader, anxious to delve into a new book, experiences.  This bundle of papers doubtless contained for him the most interesting of stories.

Returning to his ship, the road seemed to him far longer than at other times.  He longed to lock himself in his stateroom, away from all curiosity as though he were about to perform some mysterious rite.

Freya was not in existence.  She had disappeared from the world in the infamous manner in which criminals disappear,—­doubly condemned since even her memory was hateful to the people; and Ferragut within a few moments was going to resurrect her like a ghost, in the floating house that she had visited on two occasions.  He now might know the last hours of her existence wrapped in disreputable mystery; he could violate the will of her judges who had condemned her to lose her life and after death to perish from every one’s memory.  With eager avidity he seated himself before his cabin table, arranging the contents of the envelope in order;—­more than twelve sheets, written on both sides, and several newspaper clippings.  In these clippings he saw portraits of Freya, a hard and blurred likeness which he could recognize only by her name underneath.  He also beheld the portrait of her defender,—­an old lawyer of fastidious aspect with white locks carefully combed, and sharp eyes.

From the very first lines, Ferragut suspected that the maitre could neither write nor speak except in the most approved literary form.  His letter was a moderated and correct account in which all emotion, however keen it might have been, was discreetly controlled so as not to disorganize the sweep of a majestic style.