But just before nine o'clock, Elina came out at last, and, although it was dark, her first glance was at Paul's usual stand; not seeing him there, she quickened her pace, when she heard a well-known voice behind her:

"How fast you go, mademoiselle!"

"Ah! is it you, Monsieur Paul? You almost frightened me; you see--I am--I am not used to seeing you now, and I thought you were not here."

"I have been here since morning; I hoped you would come out for a minute, but I had to wait until now. Ah! the day has seemed terribly long to me."

"Really, monsieur; but for the last eleven days I have been expecting to see you in your place. Every morning I came early, so as to have time to talk a little with you; but, no, monsieur was never here. I was foolish enough even to ask leave to go out during the day, thinking that you would be there, but I took all those steps for nothing. Of course, I was a great fool to think of--a person who wasn't thinking of me. When one is thinking of anybody, he doesn't let eleven days go by without a word."

Elina said all this very rapidly, as if she did not wish to give her anger time to cool. Paul listened, walking by her side, and replied with the accent that comes from the heart:

"Elina, can it be that you believe that I no longer love you?"

The girl slackened her pace, and her voice indicated that her anger had already begun to subside, as she answered:

"Yes, monsieur; I do believe it--I am very sure of it. Not to come for eleven days! not even to find some means to be there just for a moment, to say a word to me. Oh! that was very cruel."

"Why, do you suppose, mademoiselle, that the time has not seemed long to me? that I have not been miserable at being deprived of the happiness of seeing you and hearing your voice; you, whom I love so dearly, and who are in my thoughts every instant?"

Elina stopped altogether, and there was no trace of anger in her voice.

"Well, monsieur, if that is true, then what is the meaning of this long absence? what became of you for eleven days? it seems to me as if they were months!"

"Believe that some very powerful motive was necessary to keep me away from you."

"A motive--that is no answer. Tell me, where have you been, what have you been doing? I have been told that you are a very mysterious person, that you have several occupations--is that true? No; for you would have told me. I have been a.s.sured, also, that you had robbed your comrade Sans-Cravate of his--his--mistress."

"Oh! surely you did not believe that either, did you, mademoiselle? I, rob my comrade, my friend, of his mistress! for I am fond of Sans-Cravate, although he has the reputation of being hot-headed and quarrelsome. I have seen him give all he possessed, the proceeds of a whole day's work, to a poor woman who went by with two children in her arms, and dressed in rags. And the man who does that cannot be a bad man. I, take away his mistress! Is such a thing possible?"

"Ah! that is what I said when I was told of it: 'Is such a thing possible?' but they seemed to laugh at me because I refused to believe it."

"Who?"

"Your comrades."

"Have you spoken to them?"

"Mon Dieu, yes! I ought not to have done it, but I couldn't contain myself. When you didn't come, I said to myself that some accident must have happened to you, or else you were sick. Oh! I was awfully unhappy."

This time the girl's voice trembled, not with anger, but with sobs; and Paul, who was close beside her, took her hand and pressed it lovingly in his own, saying:

"How happy I am! you still love me! Ah! this moment makes me forget all my cares. To think that anyone should dare to say that I love any other woman! You do not believe it, Elina, you will never believe it! Poor messenger that I am, am I not fortunate enough to be loved by you? what more could I desire?"

"Yes, I believe that you love me. I won't be angry any more; it makes one too wretched to be angry with a person one loves. Look at me; I am willing to see your face now. Oh! it seems to me that you have grown paler, that you have changed, since I saw you. Have you been sick?"

"No; it's the vexation and disappointment I have suffered."

"You haven't told me yet what you were doing those eleven days."

"I have been with a person, a friend, who was very ill; he had n.o.body but me to take care of him, so I could not leave him."

"Oh! in that case, I am not angry with you any more. But you never mentioned this friend to me."

"Because I seldom see him--only when he needs me."

"You are not lying to me? you haven't taken anybody's mistress?"

"I have thought of n.o.body but you."

"Good! now I am happy again. I had so many things to tell you; but when two people are together, they don't think--that is to say, they think too much--well, I don't know how it happens, but I forget everything else."

"Dear Elina!"

"Oh! wait--I remember now. First of all, there's a young man--one of those who came and laughed at us, you remember, when we were in the loft."

"Yes, indeed, I remember; but which one?"

"He's tall, but not handsome, and he has a bold, impertinent manner."

"I see which you mean; it must be Monsieur Celestin."

"Well, I noticed several times that he followed me when I came out of Madame Dumanchon's at night, to go home; he walked very close to me, and spoke to me, said a lot of foolish things, I don't know what, for I didn't listen, I never once answered him, and I walked so fast, to avoid hearing him, that I a.s.sure you he had to run to keep up with me.--'If Monsieur Paul was here with me,' I said to myself, 'he wouldn't dare to follow me, and I shouldn't be afraid of this horrid man.'"

"Poor Elina! did that fellow dare to insult you?"

"I don't know whether he did or not, for I didn't listen to him. Once he tried to take my arm and stop me, but I released myself so quickly, and pushed him away so hard, that he stood as if he was dazed, in the middle of the street. Well, he didn't follow me any more, and I was very glad; but this morning----"

"This morning?"

"One of your comrades--not Sans-Cravate, but the other one----"

"Jean Ficelle?"

"Yes. As I came down from my aunt's lodgings, I found him at the door.--'Mademoiselle,' he said, 'my comrade Paul would like to speak to you; he's waiting for you at a little restaurant close by, at the end of the street; I'll show you the place.'"

"The villain!"

"That seemed very strange to me; however, as I had asked your comrades about you yesterday, I believed that he had seen you, and that you had asked him to give me that message. So I followed this Jean Ficelle.--'Why don't Monsieur Paul come himself?' I asked him. 'What prevents him? is he sick?' But the man only answered, in a sort of wheedling tone: 'I don't know, mamzelle; but he asked me to tell you that he must speak to you, and I'm just doing his errand.' At last we arrived in front of a restaurant, and he said: 'This is the place; my comrade's expecting you; go right in, don't be afraid, and ask for Paul; and they'll take you where he is.'"

"Oh! what an infernal scoundrel that Jean Ficelle is! to second the scheme of a man who intended to outrage you! So that is what he meant to hint at this morning when he said that someone might rob me of the woman I loved. And I was so far from suspecting it! I didn't pay the slightest attention to his words.--But what happened next?"

"Well, I was about to go into the restaurant, when something, I don't know what, held me back. The girls in the workroom have often talked about places to which men had tried to entice them on one pretext or another. I said to myself: 'If Monsieur Paul is in here, it seems to me that it will be enough for me to send him word that I am here, and he will come out.' Jean Ficelle had disappeared, so I waited till a waiter pa.s.sed the door, and said to him: 'Be kind enough to tell Monsieur Paul that I am waiting for him down here.' The waiter laughed, and told me I must go upstairs; but when he saw that I insisted on staying in the street, he said he would take my message; and in a moment I saw the same young man coming who had followed me so often. When I saw him, I cried out; he tried to hold me, but I was already a long way off, thanking heaven that I didn't go into the house."

Paul's blood fairly boiled with rage when he learned that Jean Ficelle had stooped to further the projects of a man who could have had no other purpose than to ruin Elina. If his comrade had been in his place at that moment, he would have made haste to demand an explanation of his conduct, and would have been very likely to remove any inclination on his part to act again as the agent of a seducer. But Jean Ficelle and Sans-Cravate had not reappeared since the morning; and Paul, to rea.s.sure Elina, was compelled to promise her that he would not seek a quarrel with his fellow messenger.

"There is no danger for me now," she said; "Jean Ficelle did what he was told to do, in order to earn money. Certainly it is very wrong to deceive a young girl, for, of course, he knew that it wasn't you who sent for me. But all messengers are not over particular. So much the worse for the dishonest ones! Despise that man, but don't quarrel with him; if you do, monsieur, I shall never tell you again what happens to me."

"Very well; I will obey you."