last the night before. He had, they said, made
so many inquiries about the young lady, whose
supercilious conduct all in the salle-à-manger
had been discussing on his entrance. They were
talking about her as we left the room; he must
have come in directly afterwards, and not until
he had learnt all about her had he spoken of the
business which necessitated his departure at
dawn of day, and made his arrangements with
both landlord and ostler for the possession of
the keys of the stable and porte cochère. In
short, there was no doubt as to the murderer, even
before the arrival of the legal functionary who
had been sent for by the surgeon; but the words
on the paper chilled every one with terror. Les
Chauffeurs, who were they? No one knew, some
of the gang might even, then be in the room,
overhearing, and noting down fresh objects for
vengeance. In Germany I had heard little of
this terrible gang, and I had paid no greater heed
to the stories related once or twice about them
in Carlsruhe than one does to tales about ogres.
But here in their very haunts I learnt the full
amount of the terror they inspired. No one
would be legally responsible for any evidence
criminating the murderer. The public prosecutor
shrank from the duties of his office. What
do I say? Neither Amante nor I, knowing far
more of the actual guilt of the man who had
killed that poor sleeping young lady, durst
breathe a word. We appeared to be wholly
ignorant of everything: we, who might have
told so much. But how could we? we were
broken down with terrific anxiety and fatigue,
with the knowledge that we, above all, were
doomed victims; and that the blood, heavily
dripping from the bed-clothes on to the floor,
was dripping thus out of the poor dead body,
because when living she had been mistaken
for me.

At length Amante went up to the landlord,
and asked permission to leave his inn, doing all
openly and humbly, so as to excite neither
ill-will nor suspicion. Indeed, suspicion was
otherwise directed, and he willingly gave us
leave to depart. A few days afterwards we were
across the Rhine, in Germany, making our way
towards Frankfort, but still keeping our
disguises, and Amante still working at her trade.

On the way, we met a young man, a
wandering journeyman from Heidelberg. I knew
him, although I did not choose that he should
know me. I asked him, as carelessly as I
could, how the old miller was now? He told
me he was dead. This realisation of the worst
apprehensions caused by his long silence
shocked me inexpressibly. It seemed as though
every prop gave way from under me. I had
been talking to Amante only that very day
of the safety and comfort of the home that
awaited her in my father's house; of the gratitude
which the old man would feel towards her,
and how there, in that peaceful dwelling, far
away from the terrible land of France, she
should find ease and security for all the rest of
her life. All this I thought I had to promise,
and even yet more had I looked for for myself.
I looked to the unburdening of my heart and
conscience by telling all I knew to my best and
wisest friend. I looked to his love as a sure
Guidance as well as a comforting stay, and,
behold, he was gone away from me for ever!

I had left the room hastily on hearing of this
sad news from the Heidelberger. Presently,
Amante followed:

"Poor madame," said she, consoling me to
the best of her ability. And then she told me
by degrees what more she had learned respecting
my home, about which she knew almost as
much as I did, from my frequent talks on the
subject both at Les Rochers and on the dreary,
doleful road we had come along. She had
continued the conversation after I left, by asking
about my brother and his wife. Of course, they
lived on at the mill, but the man said (with
what truth I know not, but I believed it firmly
at the time), that Babette had completely got the
upper hand of my brother, who only saw
through her eyes and heard with her ears. That
there had been much Heidelberg gossip of late
days about her sudden intimacy with a grand
French gentleman who had appeared at the mill
—- a relation, by marriage—- married, in fact, to
the miller's sister, who, by all accounts, had
behaved abominably and ungratefully. But that
was no reason for Babette's extreme and sudden
intimacy with him, going about everywhere
with the French gentleman; and since he left
(as the Heidelberger said he knew for a fact)
corresponding with him constantly. Yet her
husband saw no harm in it all seemingly;
though, to be sure, he was so out of spirits,
what with his father's death and the news of
his sister's infamy, that he hardly knew how to
hold up his head.

"Now," said Amante, " all this proves that
M. de la Tourelle has suspected that you would
go back to the nest in which you were reared,
and that he has been there, and found that you
have not yet returned; but probably he still
imagines that you will do so, and has accordingly
engaged your sister-in-law as a kind of
informant. Madame has said that her sister-in-law
bore her no extreme good-will; and the
defamatory story he has got the start of us in
spreading, will not tend to increase the favour
in which your sister-in-law holds you. No
doubt the assassin was retracing his steps when
we met him near Forbach, and having heard of
the poor German lady, with her French maid
and her pretty blonde complexion, he followed
her. If madame will still be guided by me—-
and, my child, I beg of you still to trust me,"
said Amante, breaking out of her respectful
formality into the way of talking more natural
to those who had shared and escaped from
common dangers— more natural, too, where the
speaker was conscious of a power of protection
which the other did not possess— "we will go
on to Frankfort, and lose ourselves, for a time,
at least, in the numbers of people who throng a
great town; and you have told me that Frankfort
is a great town. We will still be husband
and wife; we will take a small lodging, and you