For M. de la Miraudière, having jotted down Mariette's address on one of his visiting cards, had, without thinking, written upon the same card the request for an interview which he had left for Louis. That young man, more and more perplexed, endeavoured in vain to discover what possible connection there could be between Mariette and the stranger who had left the card. After a moment's silence, he said to the porter: "Did the gentleman leave any other message?" "He told me to give you the card when your father was not present." "That is strange," thought the young man. "What kind of a looking man was he--young or old?" he asked, aloud. "A very handsome man, M. Louis, a decorated gentleman, with a moustache as black as ink, and very elegantly dressed." Louis went out with his brain in a whirl. This new revelation increased his anxiety. The most absurd suspicions and fears immediately assailed him, and he forthwith began to ask himself if this stranger were not a rival. In her letter Mariette had implored Louis to make no attempt to see her again. Such a step on his part, would, she said, endanger not only her own happiness, but that of her godmother as well. Louis knew the trying position in which the two women were placed, and a terrible suspicion occurred to him. Perhaps Mariette, impelled as much by poverty as by her godmother's persistent entreaties, had listened to the proposals of the man whose card he, Louis, had just received. In that case, what could be the man's object in requesting an interview? Louis racked his brain in the hope of solving this mystery, but in vain. These suspicions once aroused, the supposition that he had been betrayed for the sake of a rich rival seemed the only possible explanation of Mariette's strange conduct. Under these circumstances he abandoned his intention of going to Mariette's house for the present, or at least until after his interview with the commandant, from whom he was resolved to extort an explanation. He returned home about midnight, and his father, convinced by the gloomy expression of his son's countenance that he could not have seen the girl and discovered the deception that had been practised upon both of them, again proposed that they should leave for Dreux the next morning, but Louis replied that he desired more time for reflection before taking this important step, and threw himself despairingly on his pallet. Sleep was an impossibility, and at daybreak he stole out of the room to escape his father's questions, and after having waited in mortal anxiety on the boulevard for the hour appointed for his interview with Commandant de la Miraudière, he hastened to that gentleman's house. CHAPTER VIII. A STARTLING DISCOVERY. When Louis presented himself at the house of Commandant de la Miraudière, that gentleman was sitting at his desk, enveloped in a superb dressing-gown, smoking his cigar, and examining a big pile of notes and bills.