all my intelligence, you understand. You will pay the Chebes' allowance.
If she herself should ask for anything, you will give her what she needs.
But you will never mention my name. And you will keep this package safe
for me until I ask you for it."

Sigismond locked the letter and the package in a secret drawer of his
desk with other valuable papers. Risler returned at once to his
correspondence; but all the time he had before his eyes the slender
English letters traced by a little hand which he had so often and so
ardently pressed to his heart.




CHAPTER XXIII

CAFE CHANTANT

What a rare, what a conscientious clerk did that new employe of the house
of Fromont prove himself!

Every day his lamp was the first to appear at, and the last to disappear
from, the windows of the factory. A little room had been arranged for
him under the eaves, exactly like the one he had formerly occupied with
Frantz, a veritable Trappist's cell, furnished with an iron cot and a
white wooden table, that stood under his brother's portrait. He led the
same busy, regular, quiet life as in those old days.

He worked constantly, and had his meals brought from the same little
creamery. But, alas! the disappearance forever of youth and hope