outside the walls of Paris, when the carriage came to a full stop,
and, by the light of a torch streaming on the wind in front, I saw the
gate of the St Lazare. All was now over--resistance or escape was
equally beyond me. The carriage was surrounded by the guard, who
ordered me to descend; their officer received the rescript for my safe
custody, and I had nothing before me but the dungeon. But at the
moment when my foot was on the step of the vehicle, my companion
stooped forward, and uttered in my ear, with a pressure of my hand,
the word "Mordecai." I was hurried onward, and the carriage drove
away.

My surprise was excessive. This talismanic word changes the current
of my thoughts at once. It had so often and so powerfully operated in
my favour, that I could scarcely doubt its effect once more; yet
before me were the stern realities of confinement. What spell was
equal to those stonewalls, what dexterity of man or friendship, or
even the stronger love of woman, could make my dungeon free, or my
chains vanish into "thin air?" Still there had been a interposition,
and to that interposition, whether for future good or ill, it
certainly was due that I was not already mounting the scaffold, or
flung, headless trunk, into the miserable and nameless grave.

As I passed again through the cloisters, my ears were caught with the
sound of music and dancing. The contrast was sufficiently strong to
the scene from which I had just returned; yet this was the land of
contrasts. To my look of surprise, the turnkey who attended me
answered "Perhaps you have forgotten that this is Decadi, and on this
night we always have our masquerade. If you have not got a dress, I
shall supply you; my wife is a _fripier_ in the Antoine; she supplies
all the civic fêtes with costumes, and you may have any dress you