A NEW PERIL

Would he be able to resist the pressure which from all sides at once
pushed him toward the Rue Sainte Anne?

It seemed that nothing was easier than not to commit the folly of
yielding, and yet such was the persistence of the efforts that were
united against him, that he asked himself if, one day, he would not be
led to obey them in spite of himself. Phillis, Nougarede, Madame
Cormier. Now, whence would come a new attack?

For several months he had enjoyed a complete security, which convinced
him that all danger was over forever. But all at once this danger burst
forth under such conditions that he must recognize that there could never
more be any security for him. To-day Madame Dammauville menaced him;
tomorrow it would be some one else. Who? He did not know. Every one.
And it was the anguish of his position to be condemned to live hereafter
in fear, and on the defensive, without repose, without forgetfulness.

But it was not tomorrow about which he need be uneasy at this moment, it
was the present hour; that is to say, Madame Dammauville.

That she should say, with so much firmness at the sight of a single
portrait, that the man who drew the curtains was not Florentin, she must
have an excellent memory of the eyes; at the same time a resolute mind
and a decision in her ideas, which permitted her to affirm without
hesitation what she believed to be true.

If they should ever meet, she would recognize him, and recognizing him,