About half an hour before Michel Renaud left his dwelling, a cab stopped a short distance from Number 57. A lady, enveloped in a long pelisse, was in this cab. She had said to the coachman: "When you see a gentleman come out of that house, you are to follow him until I tell you to stop." The coachman, thanks to the light of his carriage lamps, saw Michel leave the house, and at once started his horse down the middle of the street at a walk. The occupant of the cab kept her eyes riveted on Michel, and thus, engrossed in the movements on the left side of the street, did not even see Madame de Luceval, who was on the opposite pavement. But Madame de Luceval had scarcely closed the door of her house behind her when a man wrapped in a long cloak came rushing down the street, as if afraid of being too late for something. This man had consequently failed to hear the signal exchanged between Florence and Michel, nor could he even see the latter, concealed as he was by the cab that was moving slowly down the street. So the man in the cloak began to follow Madame de Luceval, while the lady in the cab did not once take her eyes off Michel. CHAPTER XII. A VAIN PURSUIT. Michel and Florence, engrossed in each other, though separated by the width of the street, paid no attention to the cab which was moving slowly along in the same direction, it being a very common occurrence to see such vehicles returning to the stable at that time in the morning. As the two neighbours reached the corner of the Rue de Tournon, they met a crowd of huckster wagons on their way to the market, and the lady in the cab finding her progress thus impeded, and fearing she would lose sight of the person she was following, ordered the driver to open the door, paid him, alighted, and hastened on after Michel. She was half way down the Rue de Tournon, when she noticed, for the first time, a man wrapped in a cloak, walking only a short distance ahead of her. At first this discovery did not disturb her, but subsequently, perceiving by the light of a street lamp that a woman was walking a few yards in advance of this man, and that this woman was pursuing the same route as Michel Renaud, she began to think this very singular, and afterwards her attention was naturally divided between Michel, Madame de Luceval, and the man who was a short distance behind that lady.