Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/228

232 towards obtaining assistance had been to run to old G M and tell him of the whole occurrence. My rival's father was naturally not a little alarmed by this bad news, for G M was his only son. He was possessed of remarkable energy and spirit for a man of his years; and at once proceeded to examine the lackey as to everything that his son had been doing during the afternoon; inquiring particularly whether there was any one with whom he had had an altercation, whether he had embroiled himself in anyone else's quarrels, and whether he had been in any house of questionable character.

The poor fellow, supposing his master to be in peril of his life, and thinking that he was in duty bound to sacrifice every other consideration to that of obtaining aid for him, made a full disclosure of all that he knew regarding G M's passion for Manon, and the money he had squandered upon her; detailing how he had spent the afternoon and evening at her house until about nine o'clock; how he had then gone out, and the mishap he had met with on his way back. The father saw good grounds in all this for suspecting that his son's trouble was the result of some love-scrape.

Although it was half-past ten at night, at the earliest, he betook himself without a moment's hesitation to the Lieutenant-General of Police, and requested him to issue special orders to every squad of the night-watch. Then, asking for one of them as an escort for himself, he hastened to the street in which his son had been waylaid, and proceeded to search every part of the city in which he thought there was any hope of finding him. Failing to discover any trace of him, he finally ordered the lackey to take him to the house in which his son's mistress lived; thinking it possible that he might have returned there.