hair burst into tears.

A pretty position was this for me!--luckily it endured not. The girl
roused herself from her momentary weakness, and, seizing the cord, she
tugged it violently. The coach drew up.

"Alight, sir," she hissed--"go! I wish to Heaven that I had left you to
the vengeance of the people."

Not so did I; nevertheless, as I alighted: "I am sorry, Madame, that you
did not," I answered. "Adieu!"

The coach moved away, and I was left standing at the corner of the Rue St.
Honoré and the Rue des Bons Enfants, in the sorriest frame of mind
conceivable. The lady in the coach had saved my life, and for that I was
more grateful perchance than my life was worth. Out of gratitude sprang a
regret for the pain that I had undoubtedly caused her, and the sorrow which
it might have been my fate to cast over her life.

Still, regret, albeit an admirable sentiment, was one whose existence was
usually brief in my bosom. Dame! Had I been a man of regrets I might have
spent the remainder of my days weeping over my past life. But the gods,
who had given me a character calculated to lead a man into misfortune, had
given me a stout heart wherewith to fight that misfortune, and an armour of
recklessness against which remorse, regrets, aye, and conscience itself,
rained blows in vain.

And so it befell that presently I laughed myself out of the puerile humour
that was besetting me, and, finding myself chilled by inaction in my wet
clothes, I set off for the Palais Royal at a pace that was first cousin to