"His spirits rose a little when he was no longer faint and hungry. He determined to go in the direction the girl had mentioned, with a vague hope of somehow or other coming upon some trace, for in his inexperience he did not realise the difficulty and improbability of doing so. He spent the whole of the day in wandering about, seeing and hearing many strange and startling things, doing his utmost to hide his impressions, for fear of attracting notice. But when night fell, and he could wander about no more he took refuge in a little room he had managed to find in the house of a poor washerwoman, who let it to him cheaply, on the condition of his paying a week in advance, and then poor Pierre, completely disheartened, beginning to doubt if after all he had done right in coming off as he had done, threw himself upon the little bed and burst into tears. "The history of that day was very much the history of many that followed. At the wine-shop of the Rue de Poitiers, they would not or could not direct him to Marguerite Ribou, and Pierre wandered about, glancing in every face he passed in the hopes of seeing some one who might help him in his quest, though rarely, very rarely, venturing to make any inquiry. He forced himself to frequent places that were abhorrent to him; many an hour he hung about the streets through which would, as he came to know, pass the fearful `tumbrils,' as they were called--the heavy waggons crowded every day with the victims for the guillotine. Never in after-life did he forget the faces he saw--on this ghastly journey to death; some strong in despair, some fainting and unconscious as if already dead, a few, but very few, shrieking wildly for mercy to their brutal keepers--others, many even, with looks of sweet resignation and noble courage, to whom the guillotine was indeed but the gate of Heaven. Put among them all, never did he perceive the pale, beautiful features of the Countess of Valmont, nor, though youthful boys and girls, little children even, were often among the condemned, did he ever catch sight of Edmee's fair head and blue eyes, which he felt sure he would have known among a thousand. Some few times he forced himself to make one of the crowd in the dreadful Place de la Republique, where the guillotine stood: but he grew too sick with horror to repeat often his search there, feeling, too, how awful would have been his success! He learnt to know all the principal prisons, and the doors at which came out both the condemned and the appallingly small number of the released. But in vain--always, always in vain, till his hope began to die out, and his sad and wistful eyes told their own tale, had any one cared to read it. His money, too, was running low; he saw no possibility of gaining any; he felt that his days in Paris were numbered, and that he must return to Valmont having failed. But for his poor father and mother, he felt that he would rather die than do so.