She studies him very hard. And this is the first (and last) time that I will append the predicate laughs to the subject the Duchess. Although even that requires a proviso, for it is the kind of laugh that drags sorrow behind it.

"Forgive me," she says. "I was just imagining how I would compose my note to the Duke. 'Very sorry. Bound for America. Please begin the whist without me. Oh, and tell the King I will send along his embroidered stockings next year.' No," she says, patting his cheek. "I'm afraid it won't do, my dear. You to your world, I to mine."

"And will you be happy in your world?"

"More so than in a very long time. More so knowing you are well and cared for."

Her poise has carried her this far. How surprised she must be to have it desert so abruptly.

"Marie," he says, f luttering his hands round her. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, it's-they said I was to take care of you. Mother and Aunt elizabeth. Before they were taken away, they said-that was my charge-to . . ." She drives her fists toward her eyes.

"But you have," he says. "My whole life I owe to you."

Through red-rimmed corneas, she stares at him. No more than twenty seconds, I'd venture, but it feels much longer.

"And to think I must lose you twice over," she says.

"Not lost. Never that."

Wordlessly, she nods.

"I'll write you when we land," he says. "Would you like that?"

Another nod. Then she makes a quick sign of the cross on his forehead and seals it with a kiss, and in a hoarse whisper, she says:

"May God travel with you always."

Every fiber of her will is enlisted in the act of turning away. But once she does, she never turns back. Any more than she notices Vidocq bounding forward.

"Well, then, young man! " he says with a headmaster's chortle. "I don't mind saying I envy you. I've always wanted a go at America myself."

"Oh, then, you can come, too. You could disguise yourself as a seagull."

This is tendered in all seriousness, which is how Vidocq receives it. "Next spring," he suggests. "I'll come as a swallow."

The evening is drawing on, the departure time has come, and the farewells are complete. Except for one.

"Hector . . ."

Charles searches for me in the darkness, but I make a point of staying where I am, arms crossed.

"Keep yourself bundled," I call out. "It's cold out there on the ocean, and we've all worked too hard to lose you to pneumonia."

By now, of course, he's used to being passed from owner to owner. He took the news of Monsieur Tepac's death the way one might learn of a detour in a road. And it is too much to say he is moved by this latest parting. Disarranged is more like it. A shifting of the inner plates, only faintly seismic.

"Good-bye," he says.

He takes his place next to the Baroness in the rocking dory. The muslin bag he drops into the space between his boots-passes it back and forth, twice, and then squeezes it into stillness. The boatman drives the oar-blade into the shore, the black water folds round the hull, the tide takes hold. And as the boat draws away, Charles' eyes, on impulse, f lick back toward the landing. Where the only pair of eyes waiting to meet them is mine.

And in the instant that the boat disappears round the river's bend, I can feel Father standing alongside me. For the words that form in my mind are addressed directly to him.

We've done it. We've finished the job.

CHAPTE R 5 0.

The Making of a Forger We ll, at some poin t, a physician requires his own lodgings. It's true, Mama Vidocq would let me stay as long as I wish, but I

can no longer impose on her-and her son wouldn't allow it. Accordingly, he petitions the Ministry of Justice to grant me a reward for my

services to the crown. The response is swift: two hundred francs, in a

crisp envelope. Before another week is out, I am in possession of three

rooms, two suits, a gold chain, and a new pair of calf-length boots.