months? Does she live with her parents?"

"No."

Risler turned pale.

He hoped that Sidonie would have returned to her mother, that she would
have worked, as he had worked, to forget and atone. He had often thought
that he would arrange his life according to what he should learn of her
when he should have the right to speak of her; and in one of those far-
off visions of the future, which have the vagueness of a dream, he
sometimes fancied himself living in exile with the Chebes in an unknown
land, where nothing would remind him of his past shame. It was not a
definite plan, to be sure; but the thought lived in the depths of his
mind like a hope, caused by the need that all human creatures feel of
finding their lost happiness.

"Is she in Paris?" he asked, after a few moments' reflection.

"No. She went away three months ago. No one knows where she has gone."

Sigismond did not add that she had gone with her Cazaboni, whose name she
now bore, that they were making the circuit of the provincial cities
together, that her mother was in despair, never saw her, and heard of her
only through Delobelle. Sigismond did not deem it his duty to mention
all that, and after his last words he held his peace.

Risler, for his part, dared ask no further questions.

While they sat there, facing each other, both embarrassed by the long