Mme. Zelie Cadelle was coming in.

She was a woman of some twenty-five or six, rather tall, lithe, and well made.  Her face was pale and worn; and her heavy dark hair was scattered over her neck and shoulders.  She looked at once sarcastic and good-natured, impudent and naive, with her sparkling eyes, her turned-up nose, and wide mouth furnished with teeth, sound and white, like those of a young dog.  She had wasted no time upon her dress; for she wore a plain blue cashmere wrapper, fastened at the waist with a sort of silk scarf of similar color.

From the very threshold,

“Dear me!” she exclaimed, “how very singular!”

M. de Tregars stepped forward.

“What?” he inquired.

“Oh, nothing!” she replied,—­“nothing at all!”

And without ceasing to look at him with a wondering eye, but suddenly changing her tone of voice,

“And so, sir,” she said, “my servants have been unable to keep you from forcing yourself into my house!”

“I hope, madame,” said M. de Tregars with a polite bow, “that you will excuse my persistence.  I come for a matter which can suffer no delay.”

She was still looking at him obstinately.  “Who are you?” she asked.

“My name will not afford you any information.  I am the Marquis de Tregars.”

“Tregars!” she repeated, looking up at the ceiling, as if in search of an inspiration.  “Tregars!  Never heard of it!”

And throwing herself into an arm chair,

“Well, sir, what do you wish with me, then?  Speak!”

He had taken a seat near her, and kept his eyes riveted upon hers.

“I have come, madame,” he replied, “to ask you to put me in the way to see and speak to the man whose photograph is there on the mantlepiece.”

He expected to take her by surprise, and that by a shudder, a cry, a gesture, she might betray her secret.  Not at all.

“Are you, then, one of M. Vincent’s friends?” she asked quietly.

M. de Tregars understood, and this was subsequently confirmed, that it was under his Christian name of Vincent alone, that the cashier of the Mutual Credit was known in the Rue du Cirque.

“Yes, I am a friend of his,” he replied; “and if I could see him, I could probably render him an important service.”

“Well, you are too late.”

“Why?”

“Because M. Vincent put off more than twenty-four hours since?”

“Are you sure of that?”

“As sure as a person can be who went to the railway station yesterday with him and all his baggage.”

“You saw him leave?”

“As I see you.”

“Where was he going?”

“To Havre, to take the steamer for Brazil, which was to sail on the same day; so that, by this time, he must be awfully seasick.”

“And you really think that it was his intention to go to Brazil?”

“He said so.  It was written on his thirty-six trunks in letters half a foot high.  Besides, he showed me his ticket.”