The marquis ordered the hussar to fetch his carriage, and, when it drew up before the door, himself assisted M. Cambray to enter it.  Then he shook hands cordially with the old gentleman, stepped back to the doorway, and watched the carriage roll swiftly across the square.

* * * * *

When the servant Jocrisse had closed the boudoir door behind M. Cambray, the suffering countess sprang lightly from her couch, and pressed her handkerchief to her lips to smother her laughter; the little Amelie, overwhelmed by merriment, buried her face in her mother’s skirts; the maid giggled discreetly; while Jocrisse, clasping his rotund stomach with both hands, bent his head toward his knees, and betrayed his suppressed hilarity by his shaking shoulders.  Even the more important of the two physicians pursed his lips into a smile, and proffered his snuff-box to his colleague, who, smothering with laughter, whispered: 

“Are we not capital actors?”

* * * * *

Meanwhile M. Cambray drove rapidly in the Marquis de Fervlans’s carriage through the streets of Paris.  He was buried in thought.  He glanced only now and then from the window.  He was not altogether satisfied with himself that he was riding in a carriage which belonged to so important a person—­a gentleman whose name he had never heard until that day.

Suddenly he was surprised to find the carriage entering a gateway.  A carriage could not enter the gate at his lodgings!  The Swiss hussar sprang from the box, opened the carriage door, and M. Cambray found himself confronted by a sergeant with a drawn sword.

“This is not my residence,” said the old gentleman.

“Certainly not,” replied the sergeant.  “This is the Prison of St. Pelagie.”

“What have I to do here?  My name is Alfred Cambray.”

“You are the very one we have been expecting.”

And now it was M. Cambray’s turn to laugh merrily.

When M. Cambray’s pockets had been searched, and everything suspicious confiscated, he was conducted to a room in the second story, in which he was securely locked.  He had plenty of time to look about his new lodgings.

Apparently the room had been occupied by many an important personage.  The walls were covered with names.  Above some of them impromptu verses had been scribbled; others had perpetuated their profiles; and still others had drawn caricatures of those who had been the means of lodging them here.  The guillotine also figured among the illustrations.

The new lodger was not specially surprised to find himself a prisoner; what he could not understand was the connection between the two events.  How came it about that the courteous and sympathetic Marquis de Fervlans’s carriage had brought him here from the palace of the deeply grateful countess?

He was puzzling his brain over this question when his door suddenly opened, and a morose old jailer entered with some soup and bread for the prisoner.