“This was the final blow! I tottered away, clinging to the walls for support; too weak from lack of food to carry you. The rain was falling, and chilled us to the bones. You were crying bitterly. And all that night and all the next day, aimless and hopeless, we wandered about the streets. I must either die of want or return to your father. I preferred death. Toward evening--instinct having led me to the Seine--I sat down on one of the stone benches of the Point-Neuf, holding you on my knees and watching the flow of the dark river below. There was a strange fascination--a promise of peace in its depths--that impelled me almost irresistibly to plunge into the flood. If I had been alone in the world, I should not have stopped to consider a second, but on your account, Wilkie, I hesitated.” Moved by the thought of the danger he had escaped, M. Wilkie shuddered. “B-r-r-r!” he growled. “You did well to hesitate.” She did not even hear him, but continued: “I at last decided that it was best to put an end to this misery, and rising with difficulty, I was approaching the parapet, when a gruff voice beside us exclaimed: ‘What are you doing there?’ I turned, thinking some police officer had spoken, but I was mistaken. By the light of the street lamp, I perceived a man who looked some thirty years of age, and had a frank and rather genial face. Why this stranger instantly inspired me with unlimited confidence I don’t know. Perhaps it was an unconscious horror of death that made me long for any token of human sympathy. However it may have been, I told him my story, but not without changing the names, and omitting many particulars. He had taken a seat beside me on the bench, and I saw big tears roll down his cheeks as I proceeded with my narrative. ‘It is ever so! it is ever so!’ he muttered. ‘To love is to incur the risk of martyrdom. It is to offer one’s self as a victim to every perfidy, to the basest treason and ingratitude.’ The man who spoke in this fashion was Baron Trigault. He did not allow me to finish my story. ‘Enough!’ he suddenly exclaimed, ‘follow me!’ A cab was passing, he made us get in, and an hour later we were in a comfortable room, beside a blazing fire, with a generously spread table before us. The next day, moreover, we were installed in a pleasant home. Alas! why wasn’t the baron generous to the last? You were saved, Wilkie, but at what a price!”