"What?" "There are two roads, monsieur, one on the right, the other on the left bank of the river." "I want to go to the road where that terrible accident just occurred." "This is the first I have heard of it, monsieur." Louis drove back to the office to inquire of the fellow clerk who had brought the news, but, finding no one there, he ran out and was about to enter the cab again when the driver said: "I have just learned that the accident was on the left line, monsieur." Louis accordingly ordered him to drive to that station. Here the sad news was confirmed. He also learned at what point on the line the accident had occurred. The main road and then a cross road enabled him to reach Bas Mendon about nightfall, and, guided by the blaze of the burning cars, he soon found the scene of the catastrophe. The press of the time gave such graphic accounts of this frightful calamity that is not necessary to enter into further particulars; we will merely say that all night Louis searched in vain for his father among the charred, disfigured, and terribly mutilated bodies. About four o'clock in the morning the young man, overcome with grief and fatigue, returned to Paris, with a faint hope that his father might have been one of the few who had escaped injury, and that he might have returned home during the night. The carriage had scarcely reached the house before Louis sprang out and ran to the porter's lodge. "Has my father returned?" he exclaimed. "No, M. Louis." "Ah! there can be no further doubt, then," murmured Louis. "Dead! dead!" His knees gave way under him, and he was obliged to sit down. After resting a few moments in the room of the porter, who offered him the usual condolences, Louis went slowly up to his room. On seeing the bare, poorly furnished room so long shared with a father who had loved him so devotedly, and who had just met with such a frightful death, Louis's grief became uncontrollable, and he threw himself down on the bed, and, burying his face in his hands, wept long and bitterly. About half an hour afterward he heard some one knock at the door, and the porter entered. "What do you want?" asked Louis. "I am sorry to disturb you at such a time, monsieur, but the coachman--" "What coachman?" asked Louis, who in his grief had forgotten all about the carriage. "Why, the coachman you kept all night. He says you promised him twenty francs drink money, which, with his charge for yesterday afternoon and last night, makes forty-nine francs in all that you owe him, and he wants his money." "Pay him and let him go!" responded the young man, with sorrowful impatience. "But forty-nine francs is a large sum of money, and I haven't that much, M. Louis." "Good Heavens! what is to be done?" exclaimed Louis, suddenly aroused by this demand of the material interests of life. "I have no money, either." And he spoke the truth, for he had never had at his disposal one-fourth of the amount that he owed the coachman.