"Listen to me, good woman, my personal interest leads me to seek Blanche. The one who abducted her was everything to me, I adored him, I would have sacrificed my life for him, and the ungrateful man has forgotten me. Do you understand now, the motive which has caused me to act?" "Oh, I breathe more freely," said Marguerite, "yes, madame, I understand; this seigneur who came here is perhaps your husband. Alas! that does not astonish me, men are truly most unaccountable creatures." "Tell me all that you know, good Marguerite." Marguerite told her of the marquis' visit and of all that he had said. "He had never seen her before that day?" "Never, I can certify to that." "And you left the marquis with the barber?" "The marquis? was he a marquis then? Well, I had my doubts about it." "Please answer me." "Yes, madame, my master ordered me to go, and I left him with this marquis." "And what followed?" "I went to bed, madame, and I think that my dear Blanche did the same." "That wretch Touquet was in league with the marquis. It was he who delivered up to him that young girl." "What do you say, madame? do you think that my master?--" "Is a scoundrel!" "Speak lower, I beg of you; if he should come in, if he should hear you. But you are mistaken, madame, my master had consented to Blanche's marriage to Urbain." "The better to hide his plans." "Poor Urbain, I never see him; no doubt he is still looking for our dear little one." "Where was Blanche's chamber?" said Julia, looking curiously around her. "On the first floor looking on the street, madame. Since she came to this house she had occupied no other." "It was to this house that she came, then, with her father who was murdered?" "Yes, madame." "Were you then in the barber's service?" "No, madame, I didn't come here until three years after." "Where does your master sleep?" "Directly underneath this. This is why, if he should come in, I am afraid that he would hear us speak." "Have you always had this room?" "No, madame, I formerly had the one above Blanche's, and I liked it much better than this gloomy chamber, which has been unoccupied for a long time, and which I believe was formerly the dwelling of a magician named Odoard." Julia arose and for some moments walked silently about the room. All of a sudden she exclaimed,-- "Oh, if these walls could only speak!" "In fact," said Marguerite shaking her head, "I believe that we should learn some terrible things; a tier of tags, a sorcerer." Julia seemed to be thinking deeply when they heard the street door shut. "O my God! here is my master, I am lost," cried Marguerite; "he has expressly forbidden me to receive anybody." "Keep still, he shall not know that I am here. Does he sometimes come up into your room?" "No, but--good Saint Margaret--if he should discover--"