“Then, you are really going, Monsieur?  Indeed, I am afraid he won’t come back.  But please tell me what I shall say to him your errand was.  If it is some good news, I should be so glad, so glad, to be the first to tell it to him.  You are, perhaps, although you say not, the editor of some paper which is about to be started.  He spoke to me, the other day, of a new paper.  He would like to be a dramatic critic.  That is his dream, he says.  Is it that, Monsieur?”

“No, Madame; and, to tell you the truth, there is no longer any need for me to see your husband.  But I do not regret my visit; on the contrary—­I have met a noble woman, and I offer her my deepest respect.”

Poor, unhappy girl!  She was not used to such words; she blushingly faltered her thanks, and seemed quite grieved at the departure of this man, from whom she had expected some good luck for her husband.

“The life of Paris has its secrets!” thought Zilah, as he slowly descended the stairs, which he had mounted in such a different frame of mind, so short a time before.

When he reached the lower landing, he looked up, and saw the blond head of the young woman, leaning over above, and the little hands of the children clutching the damp railing.

Then Prince Andras Zilah took off his hat, and again bowed low.

On his way from the Rue Rochechouart to his hotel he thought of the thin, pale face of the Parisian grisette, who would slowly pine away, deceived and disdained by the man whose name she bore.  Such a fine name!  Puck or Gavroche!

“And she would die rather than soil that name.  This Jacquemin has found this pearl of great price, and hid it away under the gutters of Paris!  And I—­I have encountered—­what?  A miserable woman who betrayed me!  Ah! men and women are decidedly the victims of chance; puppets destined to bruise one another!”

On entering his hotel, he found Yanski Varhely there, with an anxious look upon his rugged old face.

“Well?”

“Well-nothing!”

And Zilah told his friend what he had seen.

“A droll city, this Paris!” he said, in conclusion.  “I see that it is necessary to go up into the garrets to know it well.”

He took a sheet of paper, sat down, and wrote as follows: 

Monsieur:—­You have published an article in regard to Prince Andras Zilah, which is an outrage.  A devoted friend of the Prince had resolved to make you pay dearly for it; but there is some one who has disarmed him.  That some one is the admirable woman who bears so honorably the name which you have given her, and lives so bravely the life you have doomed her to.  Madame Jacquemin has redeemed the infamy of Monsieur Puck.  But when, in the future, you have to speak of the misfortunes of others, think a little of your own existence, and profit by the moral lesson given you by—­an unknown.

“Now,” said Zilah, “be so kind, my dear Varhely, as to have this note sent to Monsieur Puck, at the office of ‘L’Actualite’ and ask your domestic to purchase some toys, whatever he likes—­here is the money—­and take them to Madame Jacquemin, No. 25 Rue Rochechouart.  Three toys, because there are three children.  The poor little things will have gained so much, at all events, from this occurrence.”