While these thoughts, which it takes so long to detail, passed rapidly
through his brain, he felt a soft touch on his arm, and, turning his face
slowly, encountered the tender, compassionate eyes of Isaura.

"Be consoled, dear friend," she said, with a smile, half cheering, half
mournful. "Perhaps for all true artists the solitary lot is the best."

"I will try to think so," answered Rameau; "and meanwhile I thank you
with a full heart for the sweetness with which you have checked my
presumption--the presumption shall not be repeated. Gratefully I accept
the friendship you deign to tender me. You bid me forget the words I
uttered. Promise in turn that you will forget them--or at least consider
them withdrawn. You will receive me still as friend?"

"As friend, surely: yes. Do we not both need friends?" She held out her
hand as she spoke; he bent over it, kissed it with respect, and the
interview thus closed.




CHAPTER V.

It was late in the evening that day when a man who had the appearance of
a decent bourgeois, in the lower grades of that comprehensive class,
entered one of the streets in the Faubourg Montmartre, tenanted chiefly
by artisans. He paused at the open doorway of a tall narrow house, and
drew back as he heard footsteps descending a very gloomy staircase.

The light from a gas lamp on the street fell full on the face of the