* * * * * Thrice the Hungarian perused this mysterious billet; and then, thrusting it into the breast of his richly braided jacket, slowly left the house. CHAP. III.--THE ACCUSATION. The house selected by Baron Ernest von Steinfeld, wherein to pass what might possibly be his last season in Paris, was situated in the Rue St Lazare. It was one of those buildings, of frequent occurrence in modern Parisian architecture, which seem intended to gratify the taste of such persons as prefer the English fashion of occupying an entire house, to the French one of dwelling upon a floor. At the bottom of a paved court-yard, around three sides of which was built a large mansion containing many tenants, stood one of those edifices known in French parlance as pavilions--not that they possess a dome, resemble a tent, or, for the most part, have any of the qualities of a summer-house, but because, in Paris, the term "house" is grudgingly bestowed upon a building of less than five stories and thirty or forty rooms. This pavilion had but three stories and a dozen rooms; it was a particularly complete and independent habitation, standing well back from the body of the house, under whose number it was included, and of which, although detached, it was considered to form part; and having two entrances, one through the court, the other from a lane running at right angles with the street. The ground-floor contained, besides a light and commodious vestibule and servant's offices, only one apartment, a handsome dining-room, in which, however, it was impossible, for three quarters of the year, to dine without lamps--the daylight admitted by its one broad window being greatly limited by the walls of a nook of garden, and by the impending branches of a laburnum and acacia, which mingled their boughs in affectionate union, twin lords of a square yard of grass, and of a fathom's length of flower-bed, and in the spring-time rejoiced the inmates of the pavilion with the odorous rustle of their yellow clusters and rose-coloured blossoms. The first floor contained two pleasant drawing-rooms and a boudoir; the second, bath, bed, and dressing rooms. The roof, flat and surrounded by a parapet, commanded a view over the adjacent gardens of an extensive bathing establishment and _maison de santé_, and was no unpleasant resort, on a fine day, for persons desirous to inhale the fresh air, or to scent it with the fumes of Havana's weed. This pavilion, described by the _Petites Affiches_ as _fraîchement décoré_--the said decoration consisting in fresh paint and paper, and in a profusion of that cheerful French luxury, large and excellent mirrors--was rented for six months by Baron Steinfeld, who had hired, for the same period, from a fashionable upholsterer--for a sum which would almost have furnished the house permanently in a plainer manner--a complete set of furniture, against whose perfect elegance and good taste not a syllable could be breathed.