‘What has become of _my_ Rouen?’ he asked himself dejectedly. The city had pleased him five years ago, when he and Geoffrey passed through it during a long-vacation excursion, but the queer old gabled houses, older than the Fronde—nay, many of them ancient as the famous Joan herself—the archways, the curious nooks and corners, the narrow streets and inconvenient footways, in a word, all that had made the city at once delightful to the tourist and unwholesome for its inhabitants, seemed to be extinguished by those new boulevards and huge houses. A quarter of an hour’s exploration, however, showed Lucius that much that was interesting in _his_ Rouen still remained. There was the narrow street with its famous sweetmeat shops, once the chief thoroughfare; yonder the noble old cathedral; there St. Ouen, that grandest and purest of Gothic churches. Modern improvement had not touched these, save to renovate their olden splendour. The traveller did not even stop to refresh himself, but went straight to the Rue Jeanne d’Arques, a narrow quiet street in an out-of-the-way corner, behind the Palais de Justice; so quiet, indeed, that it was difficult to imagine, in the gray stillness of this retreat, that the busy, prosperous, Napoleonised city was near at hand. The street was as clean as it was dull, and had a peculiar neatness of aspect, which is, as it were, the seal of respectability. A large white Angora cat purred upon one of the doorsteps—a canary chirped in an open window—a pair of mirrors attached to the sides of another casement, in the Belgian fashion, denoted that there were some observing eyes which did not deem even the scanty traffic of the Rue Jeanne d’Arques beneath their notice. Most of the houses were in private occupation, but there were two or three shops—one a lace-shop, another a watchmaker’s, and the watchmaker’s was next door to Number 17. Lucius crossed to the opposite side of the way and inspected this Number 17—the house from which Madame Dumarques, Lucille’s mother, had written to Ferdinand Sivewright. It had no originality in its physiognomy. Like the rest of the houses in the street, it was dull and clean—like them it looked eminently respectable. It inspired no curiosity in the observer—it suggested no mystery hidden among its inhabitants. Should he pull that brightly-polished brass knob and summon the porter or portress, and ask to see the present inmates of Number 17? There might be two or three different families in the house, though it was not large. His eye wandered to the watchmaker’s next door. A shop is neutral ground, and a watchmaker’s trade is leisurely, and inclines its practitioners to a mild indulgence in gossiping. The watchmaker would in all probability know a good deal about Number 17, its occupants past and present.