selfishness, or the odious distrust which sunders all the residents
within the walls of a populous city? Did the voice of conscience warn
them of approaching danger? It would be impossible to explain the
instinct which made them as much enemies as friends, at once
indifferent and attached, drawn to each other by impulse, and severed
by circumstance. Each perhaps hoped to preserve a cherished illusion.
It might almost have been thought that the stranger feared lest he
should hear some vulgar word from those lips as fresh and pure as a
flower, and that Caroline felt herself unworthy of the mysterious
personage who was evidently possessed of power and wealth.

As to Madame Crochard, that tender mother, almost angry at her
daughter's persistent lack of decisiveness, now showed a sulky face to
the "Black Gentleman," on whom she had hitherto smiled with a sort of
benevolent servility. Never before had she complained so bitterly of
being compelled, at her age, to do the cooking; never had her catarrh
and her rheumatism wrung so many groans from her; finally, she could
not, this winter, promise so many ells of net as Caroline had hitherto
been able to count on.

Under these circumstances, and towards the end of December, at the
time when bread was dearest, and that dearth of corn was beginning to
be felt which made the year 1816 so hard on the poor, the stranger
observed on the features of the girl whose name was still unknown to
him, the painful traces of a secret sorrow which his kindest smiles
could not dispel. Before long he saw in Caroline's eyes the dimness
attributed to long hours at night. One night, towards the end of the
month, the Gentleman in Black passed down the Rue du Tourniquet at the
quite unwonted hour of one in the morning. The perfect silence allowed
of his hearing before passing the house the lachrymose voice of the