We know not, indeed, what has become of these two Parisian types of a Beauty not of Holiness, the poor vain Poet of the Pave, and the good- hearted Ondine of the Gutter. It is obvious, from the absence of all allusion to them in Lemercier's letter to Vane, that they had passed out of the narrative before that letter was written. We must suppose the catastrophe of their fates to have been described, in some preceding chapter, by the author himself; who would assuredly not have left 141. Gustave Rameau in permanent pos session of his ill-merited and ill- ministered fortune. That French representative of the appropriately popular poetry of modern ideas, which prefers "the roses and raptures of vice" to "the lilies and languors of virtue," cannot have been irredeemably reconciled by the sweet savours of the domestic pot-au jeu, even when spiced with pungent whiffs of repudiated disreputability, to any selfish betrayal of the cause of universal social emancipation from the personal proprieties. If poor Julie Caumartin has perished in the siege of Paris, with all the grace of a self-wrought redemption still upon her, we shall doubtless deem her fate a happier one than any she could have found in prolonged existence as Madame Rameau; and a certain modicum of this world's good things will, in that case, have been rescued for worthier employment by Graham Vane. To that assurance nothing but Lemercier's description of the fate of Victor de Mauleon (which will be found in the Envoi) need be added for the satisfaction of our sense of poetic justice and if on the mimic stage, from which they now disappear, all these puppets have rightly played their parts in the drama of an empire's fall, each will have helped to "point a moral" as well as to "adorn a tale." _Valete et plaudite_! CHAPTER THE LAST. Among the refugees which the _convoi_ from Versailles disgorged on the Paris station were two men, who, in pushing through the crowd, came suddenly face to face with each other. "Aha! Bon jour, M. Duplessis," said a burly voice. "Bon jour, M. Louvier," replied Duplessis. "How long have you left Bretagne?" "On the day that the news of the armistice reached it, in order to be able to enter Paris the first day its gates were open. And you--where have you been?" "In London." "Ah! in London!" said Duplessis, paling. "I knew I had an enemy there." "Enemy! I? Bah! my dear Monsieur. What makes you think me your enemy?" "I remember your threats." "_A propos_ of Rochebriant. By the way, when would it be convenient to you and the dear Marquis to let me into prompt possession of that property? You can no longer pretend to buy it as a _dot_ for Mademoiselle Valerie."