“Monsieur,” she said, “a strange thing has happened which makes me so uneasy that I cannot help coming to tell you of it, and to ask your opinion and advice.  Antoine came about half-an-hour ago and took Noemi out for a walk.  Not ten minutes after they had left the house, a lady whom I do not know came to my door and asked if Mademoiselle Bergeron lived there.  I said yes, but that she was out.  The strange lady stared hard at me and asked if she had gone out alone.  I told her no, she was with her fiance, but that if any message could be left for her I would be careful to give it directly she should return.  Immediately the lady seized me by the arm so tightly I almost screamed.  She grew white, and then red, then she seemed to find her voice, and asked me if she could wait upstairs in Noemi’s room till she came back.  At first I said `No,’ but she would not take a refusal; she insisted upon waiting; and there she is, I could not get her to leave the place.”

Madame Jeannel stood opposite to me; I lifted my eyes, and met hers steadily.  When I had satisfied myself of her suspicions, I said in a low voice,—­

“You have done rightly to fetch me.  There is great trouble in store for our poor child.  I fear this woman may have a better right to Antoine than Noemi has.”

“I am sure of it,” responded Madame Jeannel.  “If you could but have seen how she looked!  Thank the good God she has come in time to save our Noemi from any real harm!”

“It will blight the whole of her life,” said I; “she is so innocent of evil, and she loves him so much.”

I took up my hat as I spoke, and followed Madame Jeannel downstairs and into the street.  When we reached her house, I left her in her own little parlour upon the entresol, and with a resolute step but a heavy heart I went alone to confront the strange woman in Noemi’s room.  Alas! the worst that could happen had already befallen.  Noemi had returned from her walk during the absence of her landlady, and I opened the door upon a terrible scene.  My poor child stood before me, with a white scared face, and heaving breast, upon which was pinned a bunch of autumn violets, Antoine’s last gift to her.  Her slender figure, her fair hair, her pallid complexion looked ghostlike in the uncertain twilight; she seemed like a troubled spirit, beautiful and sorely distressed, but there was no shame in her lovely face, nor any sense of guilt.  Seeing me enter, she uttered a cry of relief, and sprang forward as though to seek protection.

“Speak to her, monsieur!” she exclaimed in a voice of piercing entreaty; “oh, speak to her and ask her what it all means!  She says she is Antoine’s wife!”

The strange woman whose back had been turned towards the door when I opened it, looked round at the words, and her face met mine.  She was a brunette, with sharp black eyes and an inflexible mouth, a face which beside Noemi’s seemed like a dark cloud beside clear sunlight.