‘She came back; but, ah, how changed! It was more like the return of a ghost from the grave than of that bright creature I remembered six years before. I have no curiosity about my neighbours; and though I love my fellow creatures in the abstract, I rarely trouble myself about particular members of my race, unless they make some direct appeal to my sympathy. Thus, had I been left to myself, I might have remained for an indefinite period unaware of Félicie’s return. But I have a housekeeper who has the faults as well as the merits of her sex. While I devote my leisure to those classic writers who have rendered my native land illustrious, she, worthy soul, gives her mind to the soup, and the affairs of her neighbours. One morning, after an autumnal night of wind and rain—a night upon which a humanitarian mind would hardly have refused shelter to a strange cur—my housekeeper handed me my omelet and poured out my wine with a more important air than usual; and I knew that she was bursting to tell me something about my neighbours. The omelet, in the preparation of which she is usually care itself, was even a trifle burned.’ ‘I hope you allowed her to relieve her mind.’ ‘Yes, sir; I indulged the simple creature. You may hear her at this moment, in the little court without yonder window, singing as she works, not melodious but cheerful.’ This was in allusion to a monotonous twanging noise, something between the Irish bagpipes and a Jew’s-harp, which broke the placid stillness of the Rue Jeanne d’Arques. ‘“Well, Margot,” I said in my friendly way, “what has happened?” She burst forth at once like a torrent. “Figure to yourself then,” she exclaimed, “that any one—a human being—would travel on such a night as last night. You might have waded ankle deep upon the pavement.” “People must travel in all weathers, my good Margot,” I replied philosophically. I had not been obliged to go out myself during the storm of the preceding evening, and was therefore able to approach the subject in a calmly contemplative frame of mind. Margot shrugged her shoulders, and nodded her head vehemently, till her earrings jingled again. “But a woman, then!” she cried; “a young and beautiful woman, for instance!” This gave a new interest to the subject. My philanthropy was at once aroused. “A young and beautiful woman out in the storm last night!” I exclaimed. “She applied for shelter here, perhaps, and you accorded her request, and now fear that I shall disapprove. Margot, I forgive you. Let me see this child of misfortune.” I was prepared to administer consolation to the homeless wanderer, in the broadly Christian spirit of the divine Jean Jacques Rousseau; but Margot began to shake her head with incredible energy, and in effect, after much circumlocution on her part, for she is of a loquacious disposition, I obtained the following plain statement of facts.’