She picked up the envelope which had been hastily discarded for the fortune it had contained.

Hold! here was something more! She saw that it was her quittance,—her freedom! Her face, already happy and smiling, became joyous.

It was merely a lead-pencil scrawl on a leaf from Inspector Loup's note-book saying that——

As she read it her head swam.

"Oh! mon Dieu! It is impossible! Not Fouchette? I am not—and Mlle. Remy is my sister! Ah! Mère de Dieu! And Jean—oh! grand Dieu!"

She choked with her emotions.

"I shall die! What shall I do? What shall I do? And Lerouge, my half-brother! I shall surely die!"

With the paper crumpled in her folded hands she sank to her knees beside the big chair and bowed her head. Her heart was full to bursting, but in her deep perplexity she could only murmur, "What shall I do? what shall I do?"

Jean Marot started from his heavy sleep much later than usual to hear the clatter of dishes in the next room. Going and coming rose a rather metallic voice humming an old-time chanson of the Quartier. He had never heard Mlle. Fouchette sing before; yet it was certainly Mlle. Fouchette: