Lucius repeated his acknowledgments, and took his leave of the loquacious watchmaker. But he did not quit the Rue Jeanne d’Arques without pausing once more to contemplate the quiet old house in which Lucille’s fair young mother had drooped and died, divided from her only child, and in a measure deserted by her husband. A shadowed life, with but a brief glimpse of happiness at best. He reëntered the hotel a few minutes before nine. The little office on the left side of the hall, where Mademoiselle Dolfe had been visible all day, and always employed, was abandoned. Mademoiselle had doubtless retired into private life, and was ministering to her gouty uncle. Lucius gave his card to a waiter, requesting that it might be taken to Mademoiselle Dolfe without delay. The waiter returned sooner than he could have hoped, and informed him that Monsieur and Mademoiselle would be happy to receive him. He followed the waiter to a narrow staircase at the back of the house, by which they ascended to the entresol. Here, in a small sitting-room, with a ceiling which a moderate-sized man could easily touch with his hand, Lucius beheld Monsieur Dolfe reposing in a ponderous velvet-cushioned chair, with his leg on a rest; a stout man, with very little hair on his head, but, by way of succedaneum, a gold-embroidered smoking-cap. The small low room looked upon a courtyard like a well, and was altogether a stifling apartment. But it was somewhat luxuriously furnished, Lucius perceived by the subdued light of two pair of wax candles—the unfinished bougies of the establishment were evidently consumed here—and Monsieur Dolfe and his niece appeared eminently satisfied with it, and entirely unaware that it was wanting in airiness and space. The books of the hotel, bulky business-like volumes, were ranged on a shelf in one corner of the room. Lucius’s eye took that direction immediately; but Monsieur Dolfe was slow and pompous, and sipped his coffee as if in no hurry to satisfy the stranger’s curiosity. ‘I have told my uncle what you wish, Monsieur Davoren,’ said Mademoiselle graciously, and with a pleading glance at the old gentleman in the skull-cap. ‘May I ask your motive in wishing to trace visitors of this hotel—visitors of twenty-four years back?’ asked Monsieur Dolfe, with an important air. ‘Is it a will case, some disputed testament, and are you in the law?’ ‘I am a surgeon, as my card will show you,’ said Lucius, ‘and the case in which I am interested has nothing to do with a will. I wish to discover the secret of a young lady’s parentage—a lady who at present bears a name which I believe is not her own.’ ‘Humph,’ said Monsieur Dolfe doubtfully; ‘and there is no reward attaching to your inquiries—you gain nothing if successful?’ ‘I may gain a father, or at least a father’s name, for the girl I love,’ answered Lucius frankly. Monsieur Dolfe appeared disappointed, but Mademoiselle was enthusiastic.