"Have you come to give the poor woman an order for some work?" "Yes, that is my purpose." "This is what I was going to say, monsieur: since her--lover stopped coming to see her--a fellow with a big beard that I didn't call very good-looking--Madame Landernoy--we call her _madame_, you know--has got to be sort of wild like; you would say she was afraid. She says to me: 'If any gentlemen come to speak to me, please to say always that I ain't in, that I've gone out; don't let 'em come up.'--As there hasn't been one come for a long while, I ain't had to say anything, but I just this minute thought of her orders. However, if you mean to give her work, that can't disturb her." "Never fear, madame; my only desire is to try to be useful to your interesting tenant, not to distress her in any way." "All right, then; go up--way up to the top, as long as you find stairs; then the door facing you. There's nobody but Madame Landernoy up there in the daytime, anyway; the other two rooms belong to servants, who never go up till bed time." I understood why the poor girl did not wish to receive visits from men. After the plot of which she had been the victim, she must naturally have retained a feeling of aversion for them and must look upon them all with suspicion. In that case, I should not be warmly received, and what was I to say? I had no idea; but, no matter! I was determined to see Mignonne, and even to face her wrath. I ascended the stairs, the first flights being broad and roomy, but the upper ones very narrow. On the fifth floor I paused to take breath; in front of me was a sort of ladder, the only means of access to the lofts which many landlords have the assurance to call rooms. I know that Béranger said: "How happy one is in a garret at twenty!" True, when one is there to make love! but it must be a miserable sojourn when love abandons one there! I climbed the ladder and found myself in a low, narrow, dark passageway; I distinguished a door in front of me; that was where she lived. My heart beat as if I were on the point of committing some evil deed. Why are we no less excited when about to do good than when about to do evil? I like to believe that the sensation is different. I approached the door, and was on the point of knocking, when I heard a voice. I listened.