"Social existence is like the soil," his comrade had said to him; "it
makes us a return in proportion to our efforts."

Godefroid was in debt. As a first test, a first task, he resolved to
live in some retired place, and pay his debts from his income. To a
man accustomed to spend six thousand francs when he had but five, it
was no small undertaking to bring himself to live on two thousand.
Every morning he studied advertisements, hoping to find the offer of
some asylum where his expenses could be fixed, where he might have the
solitude a man wants when he makes a return upon himself, examines
himself, and endeavors to give himself a vocation. The manners and
customs of bourgeois boarding-houses shocked his delicacy, sanitariums
seemed to him unhealthy, and he was about to fall back into the fatal
irresolution of persons without will, when the following advertisement
met his eye:--

"To Let. A small lodging for seventy francs a month; suitable for
an ecclesiastic. A quiet tenant desired. Board supplied; the rooms
can be furnished at a moderate cost if mutually acceptable.

"Inquire of M. Millet, grocer, rue Chanoinesse, near Notre-Dame,
where all further information can be obtained."

Attracted by a certain kindliness concealed beneath these words, and
the middle-class air which exhaled from them, Godefroid had, on the
afternoon when we found him on the quay, called at four o'clock on the
grocer, who told him that Madame de la Chanterie was then dining, and
did not receive any one when at her meals. The lady, he said, was
visible in the evening after seven o'clock, or in the morning between