"By Heaven! it is a shame that the poor, pretty little vixen has no friends to rescue her from her tormentor!" exclaimed Carmontelle, vehemently. "For years this cruelty has been going on, and the girl, with her immortal soul, has been made a puppet by that charming, heartless woman. Would you believe it, the girl has never been given even the rudiments of an education? She is ignorant as a little savage, with not even a name. Yet I have seen this go on for years, in my careless fashion, without an effort to help the child. I can not understand what has roused me from my apathy, what has made me think of her at last--ah, _mon Dieu_!" This exclamation was called forth by some sudden inward light. He went on, with a half-shamed laugh: "What a speech I have made you, although I do not usually preach. Van Zandt, am I getting good, do you think, or--have I fallen in love with that Little Nobody?" There was a minute's pause, and Eliot Van Zandt took the cigar from between his lips, and answered, quietly: "In love, decidedly." "_Parbleu_!" After that hurried exclamation there was a moment's silence. Carmontelle broke it with an uneasy laugh. "I am forty years old, but I suppose a man is never too old to make a fool of himself," he said. "I believe you are right, _mon ami_. I could not get the child out of my head last night. I never noticed how pretty she was before; and those lashes on her sweet, white shoulders. I longed to kiss them, as children say, to make them well." "Poor child!" said Van Zandt; and then, without preamble, he blurted out the story of what had just happened. Carmontelle listened with clinched hands and flashing eyes, the veins standing out on his forehead like whip-cords. "The fiend!" he muttered. "_Peste_! he was always a sneak, always a villain at heart. More than once we have wished him well out of the club. Now he shall be lashed from the door, the double-dyed scoundrel! And she, the deceitful madame, she could plan this horrid deed! She is less than woman. She shall suffer, mark you, for her sin." "But the little ma'amselle, Carmontelle? What shall we do to deliver her from her peril? Every passing moment brings her doom nearer, yet I can think of nothing. My brain seems dull and dazed." "Do? Why, we shall take a carriage and bring her away 'over the garden wall,'" replied Carmontelle, lightly but emphatically. "Very well; but--next?" Carmontelle stared and repeated, in some bewilderment: "Next?" Eliot Van Zandt explained: "I mean, what shall we do when we have brought her away? Where shall we find her a refuge and hiding-place from her treacherous enemies?" anxiously. "You cold-blooded, long-headed Yankee! I never thought of that. I should have brought her away without thinking of the future. But you are right. It is a question that should be decided first. What, indeed, shall we do with the girl?" And for a moment they looked at each other, in the starlight, almost helplessly.