In a twinkling the three were upon her. While the burly leader tore away her grasp of the blind Louise, the fellow with the cloth threw it over her face and shoulders, stifling her screams. Not a passer-by in sight! Fiercely Henriette struggled, twice lifting the cloth from her face, and fiercely Louise sought to twine herself around the body of her lovely guide and protector. But the big man again had thrown the blind girl off, and the fellows, having tied the black cloth, lifted Henriette between them and carried her into a waiting fiacre. "We've got her safe now, La Fleur," said the kidnappers. "Drive your hardest to Bel-Air, the Marquis's fete begins at nine o'clock!" said the villain addressed, who was none other than the famous nobleman's pander.... What cared the Marquis and La Fleur about the blind one's misfortunes. As La Fleur had said: "Never fear--blindness is ever a good stock in trade. She'll find her career--in the streets of Paris!" Louise stopped, and listened for the retreating footsteps. The noise of the kidnappers' melee was quite stilled. Instead, the diminishing sound of hoofbeats and crunching wheels woke the echoes of the silent street; mingled with it--perhaps not even actually, but the memory of an earlier outcry--the muffled cry, "Louise! Louise!" Louise listened again, but no familiar sound met her ear--only the rushing of the water, or the footsteps of some pedestrian in the distance. "I hear nothing," she said, in a terrified whisper. Hoping against hope, and in a voice trembling with fear, she spoke as it were to the empty winds: "Henriette! Speak to me, speak one word. Answer me, Henriette!" No answer, no reply! "Louise!" sounded faintly on the far-off wind, or perhaps her poor brain conjured it. The blind girl knew now that her sister was beyond reach, and in the power of cruel men who knew no mercy. "They have dragged her away to some hiding," sensed the poor blind brain, "or perhaps that carriage is bearing her away from me forever. Oh, what shall I do?" she cried aloud, in tones that would have thrilled a hearer's heart with pity. "Alone--alone! Abandoned!" With the last word the full horror of her situation surged upon her, and she burst into a torrent of tears. Alone in Paris! Blind and alone, without relatives or friends. You who sit in a cozy home, surrounded by safeguards and comforts, can have no idea of the blind foundling's utter dependence or the terrible meaning conveyed by the one word "abandoned." "What will become of me?" she cried, between the sobs. "Alone in this great city; helpless and blind--my God, what _shall_ I do? Where am I to go? I do not know which way to turn!"