"So that girl has gone. How I treated her! why, I must have lost my reason. She came here to ask me for help, for protection, and I brutally sent her away, drove her out of doors. Poor child! is it her fault that she is the fruit of adultery? She does not know who her mother is, as she came to ask me for information concerning her parents. They shamelessly abandoned her, and I turn her out of doors! Can it be that I propose to be as shameless as they? Ah! I behaved very badly. And this storm--great heavens! the rain is falling in sheets. Can she have gone away in such weather?" The count rang violently and Pongo quickly answered. "Master, he ring?" "Yes; that young girl from Paris who came just now to speak to me--where is she? Go and find her, and bring her back; I don't want her to go away." "Yes, master." And the mulatto, who had seen no girl, ran all over the house, the courtyard and the garden, shouting at the top of his voice: "Young girl from Paris! come right back. Master ask for you; master want to see you. She no answer.--Oh! me find you!" Georget spied Pongo just at the moment that he was applying to a great chestnut tree, saying to it: "You see young lady who come to speak to master?" "What are you doing there, Pongo?" "Monsieur Georget, me look for someone master want, and me no find." "And you are applying to that tree to learn where she is?" "Oh! he understand all right; he no speak, but he understand." "Whom are you looking for?" "A young girl from Paris, who come to speak to master; he no longer want her to go away." "A young girl from Paris has been here to see Monsieur Malberg?" "Yes." "What was she like, Pongo? Describe her to me." "Me no see her. It was master, him tell me." "Who let her in then? Ah! there's the gardener." Georget ran to the gardener, and Pongo ran about the garden, talking to the trees and the flowers. "Did you see this girl who came from Paris to speak to monsieur?" "Yes, to be sure; it was me who let her in and took her to the master." "What was she like?" "Pretty as a picture, on my word; she's a fine slip of a girl." "Did she tell you her name before you let her in?" "No, she said it wasn't worth while." "Did she stay long with monsieur?" "Why, yes, quite a while." "And she has gone?" "Yes, as much as half an hour ago; the storm was just beginning, and when I saw that, I asked her to wait in my house; I told her she'd get wet; but she wouldn't stop; she made me feel bad because she was crying." "She was crying? What! she was crying when she left Monsieur Malberg?" "I should say so! big tears too! she looked as if she was in very great trouble, but she started off all the same." Georget waited to hear no more; he ran to the count, and could hardly say what he wished to, he was so excited. "Monsieur, the girl who came--a young girl came from Paris,--and talked with you, monsieur?" "To be sure; well?"