"Ah! Well, here is something which will cheer you up, I'm sure!... Here's a letter from a lady for you.... I found it in my pigeon-hole by mistake!" Fandor smiled. "From a lady?... You must be mistaken!... How do you know it is?" "By the handwriting, the paper, and so on--I'm not mistaken--am I ever?..." Laughing, Maray threw down on Fandor's table a small envelope with a deep black border. "Yes, it is a letter from a woman," said Fandor, as he picked it up: "from whom?... Ah,... why yes!..." With a hasty finger, he tore open the envelope whilst his colleague withdrew making a joking remark. "Dear boy, I leave you to this tender missive: I should be annoyed with myself were I to interrupt your reflections!" Fandor's friend would have been surprised, if he could have seen the gloomy expression which the perusal of this so-called love-letter produced. Jerome had turned to the signature--_Elizabeth Dollon_. "What does she want with me?" he asked himself. "After the extraordinary affair of rue du Quatre Septembre, one must suppose that she has arrived at some conclusion regarding the possible guilt of her brother ... so long as she does not let her imagination run away with her, and, like the police, fancy that Jacques Dollon is still in the land of the living? The position the poor thing is in is a very cruel one!" Fandor had met Jacques Dollon's young sister repeatedly; and, every time, he had been more and more troubled by the poor girl's touching grief, as well as by her pathetic beauty, which had made a great impression on him.... He began to read her letter. _"Dear Sir,_ _You have been so good to me in all my troubles, you have shown me such true sympathy, that I do not hesitate to ask your help once more._ _Such an extraordinary thing has happened to me which I cannot account for at all, which, nevertheless, makes me think, more than ever, that my poor brother is living, innocent, and kept prisoner, perhaps by those who compel him to accept the responsibility for all those horrible crimes you know about._ _To-day, whilst I was in Paris on business, some people, of whom I know nothing, I need hardly say, whom not a soul in the private boarding-house where I am saw, these persons entered my room!_ _I found all my belongings turned upside down; my papers scattered over the floor, every drawer and trunk and box ransacked from top to bottom!_ _You can guess how frightened I was...._ _I do not think they had come to do me any personal harm, not even to rob me, for I had left my modest jewellery on the mantelpiece and found them still there: those who entered my room did not covet valuables._ _Then, why did they come?_ _You are perhaps going to say that my imagination is playing me tricks!... Nevertheless, I assure you that I try to keep calm, but I cannot keep control of myself, and I am terribly afraid!_