He was called to Paris, I never understood why. When the day came, he was seized with such despair as I had never seen before, as I trust I may never have to see again. He could not leave Louise, he would not. No! No! No! He raved, he swore, he wept. I was terrified, but Louise, when I called her aside to consult her, shrugged her shoulders. "We play the comedy in the kitchen," she laughed, but I noticed that her laughter was low. I fancy when you played the comedy with M. Auguste, tragedy was only just round the corner. With the help of _Mademoiselle_ she got him to the station; he had wanted to throw himself from the train as it started, was her report. And in three days, not a penny the richer for the journey, he had returned to his life of ease in our chambers. Thus we came to know M. Auguste's virtues and something of his temper, but never M. Auguste himself. The months passed, and we were still conscious of mystery. I did not inspire him with the healthy fear he entertained for J., but I cannot say he ever took me into his confidence. What he was when not in our chambers; what he had been before he moved into them; what turn of fate had stranded him, penniless, in London with Louise, to make us the richer for his coming; why he, a man of education, was married to a woman of none; why he was M. Auguste while Louise was Louise Sorel--I knew as little the day he left us as the day he arrived. J. instinctively distrusted him, convinced that he had committed some monstrous crime and was in hiding. This was also the opinion of the French Quarter, as I learned afterwards. It seems the _Quartier_ held its breath when it heard he was our guest, and waited for the worst, only uncertain what form that worst would take,--whether we should be assassinated in our beds, or a bonfire made of our chambers. M. Auguste, however, spared us and disappointed the _Quartier_. His crime, to the end, remained as baffling as the identity of the Man in the Iron Mask, or the secret of Kaspar Hauser. That he was honest, I would wager my own reputation for honesty, even if it was curious the way his fingers gradually covered themselves with rings, a watch-chain dangled from his waistcoat pocket, a pin was stuck jauntily in his necktie. Her last purchases at the _Mont de Piete_, pawned during those first weeks of starving in London and gradually redeemed, was Louise's explanation; and why should we have suspected M. Auguste of coming by them unlawfully when he never attempted to rob us, though we gave him every opportunity? He knew where I kept my money and my keys. He was alone with Louise in our chambers, not only many a day and evening, but once for a long summer.