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 informed him very promptly that Madame and Mademoiselle had left Blanquais a couple of hours earlier. They had gone to Paris—yes, very suddenly, taking with them but little luggage, and they had left her—she had the honour of being the femme de chambre of ces dames—to put up their remaining possessions and follow as soon as possible. On Bernard's expressing surprise, and saying that he had supposed them to be fixed at the seaside for the rest of the season, the femme de chambre, who seemed a very intelligent person, begged to remind him that the season was drawing to a close; that Madame had taken the chalet but for five weeks, only ten days of which period were yet to expire; that ces dames, as Monsieur perhaps knew, were great travellers, who had been half over the world and thought nothing of breaking camp at an hour's notice, and that, in fine, Madame might very well have received a telegram summoning her to another part of the country.

"And where have the ladies gone?"

"For the moment to Paris."

"And in Paris where have they gone?"

"Dame, chez elles—to their house," said the femme de chambre, who appeared to think that Bernard asked too many questions.

But Bernard persisted.

"Where is their house?"

The waiting-maid looked at him from head to foot.

"If Monsieur wishes to write, many of Madame's letters come to her banker," she said inscrutably.

"And who is her banker?"

"He lives in the Rue de Provence."

"Very good—I will find him out," said our hero, turning away.

The discriminating reader who has been so good as to interest himself in this little narrative will 177