“Monsieur,” she began in a voice that trembled with emotion, “I have come to you in the midst of the greatest distress that any human being has ever been called upon to bear.  It was by the merest accident that I heard of you.  I have been to the police; they cannot—­will not—­act without I furnish them with certain information which it is not in my power to give them.  Then when I was half distraught with despair, a kindly agent there spoke to me of you.  He said that you were attached to the police as a voluntary agent, and that they sometimes put work in your way which did not happen to be within their own scope.  He also said that sometimes you were successful.”

“Nearly always, Mademoiselle,” I broke in firmly and with much dignity.  “Once more I beg of you to tell me in what way I may have the honour to serve you.”

“It is not for herself, Monsieur,” here interposed M. Arthur, whilst a blush suffused Mlle. Geoffroy’s lovely face, “that my sister desires to consult you, but for her fiance M. de Marsan, who is very ill indeed, hovering, in fact, between life and death.  He could not come in person.  The matter is one that demands the most profound secrecy.”

“You may rely on my discretion, Monsieur,” I murmured, without showing, I flatter myself, the slightest trace of that astonishment which, at mention of M. de Marsan’s name, had nearly rendered me speechless.

“M. de Marsan came to see me in utmost distress, Monsieur,” resumed the lovely creature.  “He had no one in whom he could—­or rather dared—­confide.  He is in the Chancellerie for Foreign Affairs.  His uncle M. de Talleyrand thinks a great deal of him and often entrusts him with very delicate work.  This morning he gave M. de Marsan a valuable paper to copy—­a paper, Monsieur, the importance of which it were impossible to overestimate.  The very safety of this country, the honour of our King, are involved in it.  I cannot tell you its exact contents, and it is because I would not tell more about it to the police that they would not help me in any way, and referred me to you.  How could they, said the chief Commissary to me, run after a document the contents of which they did not even know?  But you will be satisfied with what I have told you, will you not, my dear M. Ratichon?” she continued, with a pathetic quiver in her voice and a look of appeal in her eyes which St. Anthony himself could not have resisted, “and help me to regain possession of that paper, the final loss of which would cost M. de Marsan his life.”

To say that my feeling of elation of a while ago had turned to one of supreme beatitude would be to put it very mildly indeed.  To think that here was this lovely being in tears before me, and that it lay in my power to dry those tears with a word and to bring a smile round those perfect lips, literally made my mouth water in anticipation—­for I am sure that you will have guessed, just as I did in a moment, that the valuable document of which this adorable being was speaking, was snugly hidden away under the flooring of my room in Passy.  I hated that unknown de Marsan.  I hated this Arthur who leaned so familiarly over her chair, but I had the power to render her a service beside which their lesser claims on her regard would pale.