"I mean to find out where she's going--to follow her. Are you coming with me?" "To be sure! As if I would desert a friend! Besides, I don't feel like working to-day. Forward, guide left, march!" The two messengers followed the boulevard in the direction taken by Bastringuette; they walked very fast, one looking to the right, the other to the left, but they did not see the person they desired to follow. "Where the devil can she have gone?" said Sans-Cravate. "It's very strange," rejoined Jean Ficelle, "unless she turned off the boulevard. Here we are at Porte Saint-Denis." "Let's go on," said Sans-Cravate. "Bastringuette has a cousin who lives Rue Barbette way; perhaps she's gone to see her." "In the Marais; ah! she has a cousin who lives in the Marais? How that fits in!" "What's that? what do you mean?" "Oh! nothing." "I don't like hints, Jean Ficelle; speak out, sacrebleu!" "Well, I mean that the Marais is where Paul's always seen when he's disguised as a swell; and Bastringuette comes along, dressed in tiptop style, and goes in that direction. _Dame!_ if a fellow had an evil tongue, he might say that your mistress and our so-called comrade made assignations there--perhaps at the cousin's, who knows? There's such things as obliging cousins." Sans-Cravate did not say a word, but he strode along the boulevards at such a pace that his companion was breathless with trying to keep up with him. Jean Ficelle suggested a brief halt, but, instead of complying, Sans-Cravate began to run. "I think I see her over yonder," he shouted; "she turned into Rue du Temple; I must overtake her." "Thunder and guns!" muttered Jean Ficelle, as he followed on; "my liver'll bust by the time we catch her." XII FATHER AND SON In a very handsome house on Rue Caumartin, the windows of an apartment on the second floor were still brightly lighted, although it was after three o'clock in the morning. In that fashionable quarter, it was a fair presumption that anybody who was still out of bed at that hour would be indulging in the pleasures of card playing, music, or dancing; that an evening party had been prolonged until that hour, and that the master or mistress of the house took pride in having the dawn find their guests still under their roof. But such a presumption would have been false in this instance. In a luxurious salon, where several candles were still burning, a man sat, alone, on the corner of a couch, his head bent forward; and, to judge by the expression of his features, by the melancholy look in his eyes, he had not passed the night in merrymaking.