growing alarm. "You have looked and acted very strangely ever since you read that letter. You frighten me."
"You are mistaken, father. There is nothing the matter with me. I have a slight headache, that is all. I shall be back soon."
And Louis left the room abruptly.
As he passed the porter's lodge, that functionary stopped him, and said, with a mysterious air:
"M. Louis, I want to see you alone for a moment. Step inside, if you please."
"What is it?" asked Louis, as he complied with the request.
"Here is a card that a gentleman left for you. He came in a magnificent carriage, and said that his business was very important."
Louis took the card, and, approaching the lamp, read:
"Requests the honour of a visit from M. Louis Richard to-morrow morning between nine and ten, as he has a very important communication, which will brook no delay, to make to him."
"Commandant de la Miraudière? I never heard the name before," Louis said to himself, as he examined the card, then, turning it over mechanically, he saw, written in pencil on the other side:
"Mariette Moreau, with Madame Lacombe, Rue des Prêtres St. Germain l'Auxerrois."
For M. de la Miraudière, having jotted down Mariette's address on one of his visiting cards, had, without thinking, written upon the same card the request for an interview which he had left for Louis.
That young man, more and more perplexed, endeavoured in vain to discover what possible connection there could be between Mariette and the stranger who had left the card. After a moment's silence, he said to the porter:
"Did the gentleman leave any other message?"
"He told me to give you the card when your father was not present."
"That is strange," thought the young man.
"What kind of a looking man was he — young or old?" he asked, aloud.
"A very handsome man, M. Louis, a decorated gentleman, with a moustache as black as ink, and very elegantly dressed."
Louis went out with his brain in a whirl. This new revelation increased his anxiety. The most absurd suspicions and fears immediately assailed him, and he forthwith began to ask himself if this stranger were not a rival.
In her letter Mariette had implored Louis to make no attempt to see her again. Such a step on his part, would, she said, endanger not only her own happiness, but that of her godmother as well. Louis knew the trying position in which the two women were placed, and a terrible suspicion occurred to him. Perhaps Mariette, impelled as much by poverty as by her godmother's persistent entreaties, had listened to the proposals of the man whose card he, Louis, had just received. In that case, what could be the man's object in requesting an interview? Louis racked his brain in the hope of solving this mystery, but in vain.
These suspicions once aroused, the supposition that he had been betrayed for the sake of a rich rival seemed the only possible explanation of Mariette's strange conduct. Under these circumstances he abandoned his intention of going to Mariette's house for the present, or at least until after his interview with the commandant, from whom he was resolved to extort an explanation.
He returned home about midnight, and his father, convinced by the gloomy expression of his son's countenance that he could not have seen the girl and discovered the deception that had been practised upon both of them, again proposed that they should leave for Dreux the next morning, but Louis replied that he desired more time for reflection before taking this important step, and threw himself despairingly on his pallet.
Sleep was an impossibility, and at daybreak he stole out of the room to escape his father's questions, and after having waited in mortal anxiety on the boulevard for the hour appointed for his interview with Commandant de la Miraudière, he hastened to that gentleman's house.
CHAPTER VIII.
A STARTLING DISCOVERY
When Louis presented himself at the house of Commandant de la Miraudière, that gentleman was sitting at his desk, enveloped in a superb dressing-gown, smoking his cigar, and examining a big pile of notes and bills.
While he was thus engaged, his servant entered, and announced:
"M. Richard."
"Ask M. Richard to wait in the drawing-room a moment. When I ring, show him in."
As soon as the servant left the room, M. de la Miraudière opened a secret drawer in his desk, and took out twenty-five one thousand franc notes, and placed them beside a sheet of the stamped paper used for legal documents of divers kinds, then rang the bell.
Louis entered, with a gloomy and perturbed air. His heart throbbed violently at the thought that he was, perhaps, in the presence of a favoured rival, for this poor fellow, like sincere lovers in general, greatly exaggerated the advantages which his competitor possessed, so M. de la Miraudière, wrapped in a handsome dressing-gown, and occupying an elegant suite of apartments, seemed a very formidable rival indeed.
"Is it to M. Louis Richard that I have the honour of speaking?" inquired M. de la Miraudière, with his most ingratiating smile.
"Yes, monsieur."
"The only son of M. Richard, the scrivener?"
These last words were uttered with a rather sarcastic air. Louis noted the fact, and responded, dryly:
"Yes, monsieur, my father is a scrivener."
"Excuse me, my dear sir, for having given you so much trouble, but it was absolutely necessary that I should talk with you alone, and as that seemed well-nigh impossible at your own home, I was obliged to ask you to take the trouble to call here."
"May I ask why you wished to see me, monsieur?"
"Merely to offer you my services, my dear M. Richard," replied M. de la Miraudière in an insinuating tone. "For it would give me great pleasure to be able to call you my client."
"Your client? Why, who are you, monsieur?"
"An old soldier, now on the retired list, — twenty campaigns, ten wounds, — now a man of affairs, merely to pass away the time. I have a number of large capitalists as backers, and I often act as an intermediary between them and young men of prospective wealth."
"Then I do not know of any service you can render me."
"You say that, when you are leading a life of drudgery as a notary's clerk, when you are vegetating — positively vegetating — living in a miserable attic with your father, and dressed, Heaven knows how!"
"Monsieur!" exclaimed Louis, fairly purple with indignation.
"Excuse me, my young friend, but these are, I regret to say, the real facts of the case, shameful as they appear. Why, a young man like you ought to be spending twenty-five or thirty thousand francs a year, ought to have his horses and mistresses and enjoy life generally."
"Monsieur, if this is intended as a joke, I warn you that I am in no mood for it," said Louis, angrily.
"As I have already told you, I am an old soldier who has proved his valour on many a well-fought field, my young friend, so I can afford not to take offence at your manner, for which there is plenty of excuse, I must admit, as what I am saying must seem rather extraordinary to you."
"Very extraordinary, monsieur."
"Here is something that may serve to convince you that I am speaking seriously," added the man of affairs, spreading out the thousand franc notes on his desk. "Here are twenty-five thousand francs that I should be delighted to place at your disposal, together with twenty-five hundred francs