laugh distinguished from the rest by a more genuine ring of light-hearted
joy, the laugh that he had heard on entering the gardens, and the sound
of which had then saddened him. Looking towards the quarter from which
it came, he again saw the "Ondine of Paris." She was not now the centre
of a group. She had just found Gustave Rameau, and was clinging to his
arm with a look of happiness in her face, frank and innocent as a
child's; and so they passed amid the dancers down a solitary lamplit
alley, till lost to the Englishman's lingering gaze.




CHAPTER X.

The next morning Graham sent again for M. Renard. "Well," he cried, when
that dignitary appeared and took a seat beside him, "chance has favoured
me."

"I always counted on chance, Monsieur. Chance has more wit in its little
finger than the Paris police in its whole body."

"I have ascertained the relations, on the mother's side, of Louise Duval,
and the only question is how to get at them." Here Graham related what
he had heard, and ended by saying, "This Victor de Mauleon is therefore
my Louise Duval's uncle. He was, no doubt, taking charge of her in the
year that the persons interested in her discovery lost sight of her in
Paris; and surely he must know what became of her afterwards."

"Very probably; and chance may befriend us yet in the discovery of Victor
de Mauleon. You seem not to know the particulars of that story about the