Uncle David was now in Paris. The moon was shining over that beautiful city. In a lonely street, in a quarter which fashion had long forsaken--over whose pavement, as yet unconscious of the Revolution, had passed, in the glare of torchlight, the carved and emblazoned carriages of an aristocracy, as shadowy now as the courts of the Cæsars--his footsteps are echoing. A huge house presents its front. He stops and examines it carefully for a few seconds. It is the house of which he is in search. At one time the Baron Vanboeren had received patients from the country, to reside in this house. For the last year, during which he had been gathering together his wealth, and detaching himself from business, he had discontinued this, and had gradually got rid of his establishment. When David Arden rang the bell at the hall-door, which he had to do repeatedly, it was answered at last by an old woman, high-shouldered, skin and bone, with a great nose, and big jaw-bones, and a high-cauled cap. This lean creature looks at him with a vexed and hollow eye. Her bony arm rests on the lock of the hall-door, and she blocks the narrow aperture between its edge and the massive door-case. She inquires in very nasal French what Monsieur desires. "I wish to see Monsieur the Baron, if he will permit me an interview," answered Mr. Arden in very fair French. "Monsieur the Baron is not visible; but if Monsieur will, notwithstanding, leave any message he pleases for Monsieur the Baron, I will take care he receives it punctually." "But Monsieur the Baron appointed me to call to-night at ten o'clock." "Is Monsieur sure of that?" "Perfectly." "Eh, very well; but, if he pleases, I must first learn Monsieur's name." "My name is Arden." "I believe Monsieur is right." She took a bit of notepaper from her capacious pocket, and peering at it, spelled aloud, "D-a-v-i-d----" "A-r-d-e-n," interrupted and continued the visitor, spelling his name, with a smile. "A-r-d-e-n," she followed, reading slowly from her paper; "yes, Monsieur is right. You see, this paper says, 'Admit Monsieur David Arden to an interview.' Enter, if you please Monsieur, and follow me." It was a decayed house of superb proportions, but of a fashion long passed away. The gaunt old woman, with a bunch of large keys clinking at her side, stalked up the broad stairs and into a gallery, and through several rooms opening _en suite_. The rooms were hung with cobwebs, dusty, empty, and the shutters closed, except here and there where the moonlight gleamed through chinks and seams. David Arden, before he had seen the Baron Vanboeren in London, had pictured him in imagination a tall old man with classic features, and manners courteous and somewhat stately.