a chase, a hunt; a hunt in Paris, a hunt with all its chances, minus
dogs and guns and the tally-ho! Nothing compares with it but the life
of gamblers. But it needs a heart big with love and vengeance to
ambush itself in Paris, like a tiger waiting to spring upon its prey,
and to enjoy the chances and contingencies of Paris, by adding one
special interest to the many that abound there. But for this we need a
many-sided soul--for must we not live in a thousand passions, a
thousand sentiments?

Auguste de Maulincour flung himself into this ardent existence
passionately, for he felt all its pleasures and all its misery. He
went disguised about Paris, watching at the corners of the rue Pagevin
and the rue des Vieux-Augustins. He hurried like a hunter from the rue
de Menars to the rue Soly, and back from the rue Soly to the rue de
Menars, without obtaining either the vengeance or the knowledge which
would punish or reward such cares, such efforts, such wiles. But he
had not yet reached that impatience which wrings our very entrails and
makes us sweat; he roamed in hope, believing that Madame Jules would
only refrain for a few days from revisiting the place where she knew
she had been detected. He devoted the first days therefore, to a
careful study of the secrets of the street. A novice at such work, he
dared not question either the porter or the shoemaker of the house to
which Madame Jules had gone; but he managed to obtain a post of
observation in a house directly opposite to the mysterious apartment.
He studied the ground, trying to reconcile the conflicting demands of
prudence, impatience, love, and secrecy.

Early in the month of March, while busy with plans by which he
expected to strike a decisive blow, he left his post about four in the
afternoon, after one of those patient watches from which he had