Sometimes, as with his child beside him he wandered through the gay city, it came over him like a flood what it would be to come upon this man, to look into his face, to behold in it the workings of that soul which for an apparent weakness could have cast off Margaret; and then to do what? To take his revenge by proclaiming in words that could not be denied the purity of his forsaken wife—by giving up into his keeping the child whose young love he had despised. And if, after all, he should be unworthy of this happiness? L'Estrange was walking through the Champs Elysées with Laura late in the afternoon of a sultry day when this thought dawned upon him.
He stopped, and sitting down on one of the chairs drew the child to his knees. There was a fierce determination in his face that half frightened her.
"Mon père!" she said gently.
He turned his face from her and hid it with his hand. L'Estrange was vowing a great vow with himself.
"By Heaven!" he muttered, but so low that she could not hear, "I will watch him, and if I read this weakness in his face he shall never know."
Then he looked forward down the avenue.
A tall, well-shaped and well-dressed man, English evidently, from his carriage and general appearance, was sauntering leisurely in the direction of the Place de la Concorde with a young French girl, who seemed to be chattering volubly and making good use of her eyes, hanging on his arm. There was a carelessness in his manner to her that seemed to mark her out as not precisely of his own position in the social scale, and this, as well as a certain resemblance, tempted L'Estrange to follow the pair.
"Stay where you are till I come back," he whispered to the child. In the gathering twilight he followed till he was close on the heels of the young Englishman.
His companion was at that moment looking up coaxingly into his face.