I took what he held, and looking at it, nodded. It was a knot of velvet of a peculiar dark red colour, and had formed, as I knew the moment I set eyes on it, part of the fastening of mademoiselle’s mask. ‘Where did you find it?’ I muttered, supposing that he had picked it up on the stairs. ‘Look at it!’ he answered impatiently. ‘You have not looked.’ I turned it over, and then saw something which had escaped me at first--that the wider part of the velvet was disfigured by a fantastic stitching, done very roughly and rudely with a thread of white silk. The stitches formed letters, the letters words. With a start I read, ‘A MOI!’ and saw in a corner, in smaller stitches, the initials ‘C. d. l. V.’ I looked eagerly at the student. ‘Where did you find this?’ I said. ‘I picked it up in the street,’ he answered quietly, ‘not three hundred paces from here.’ I thought a moment. ‘In the gutter, or near the wall?’ I asked. ‘Near the wall, to be sure.’ ‘Under a window?’ ‘Precisely,’ he said. ‘You may be easy; I am not a fool. I marked the place, M. de Marsac, and shall not forget it.’ Even the sorrow and solicitude I felt on my mother’s behalf--feelings which had seemed a minute before to secure me against all other cares or anxieties whatever--were not proof against this discovery. For I found myself placed in a strait so cruel I must suffer either way. On the one hand, I could not leave my mother; I were a heartless ingrate to do that. On the other, I could not, without grievous pain, stand still and inactive while Mademoiselle de la Vire, whom I had sworn to protect, and who was now suffering through my laches and mischance, appealed to me for help. For I could not doubt that this was what the bow of velvet meant; still less that it was intended for me, since few save myself would be likely to recognise it, and she would naturally expect me to make some attempt at pursuit. And I could not think little of the sign. Remembering mademoiselle’s proud and fearless spirit, and the light in which she had always regarded me, I augured the worst from it. I felt assured that no imaginary danger and no emergency save the last would have induced her to stoop so low; and this consideration, taken with the fear I felt that she had fallen into the hands of Fresnoy, whom I believed to be the person who had robbed me of the gold coin, filled me with a horrible doubt which way my duty lay. I was pulled, as it were, both ways. I felt my honour engaged both to go and to stay, and while my hand went to my hilt, and my feet trembled to be gone, my eyes sought my mother, and my ears listened for her gentle breathing.