"Mysterious," she said, "and unsatisfactory, as is everything connected with Monsieur Durham! The paper to which this letter refers is of importance doubtless, but what it may contain, and who 'H. S.' may be, are equally unknown to me; and without that information I am helpless to make use of it. Let it remain there! A time may come when t will be of service. Meanwhile I have the two thousand pounds to work with, and Monsieur Calverley to work upon; he is the only link which I can see at present to connect me with my fugitive husband. Through him is the only means I have of obtaining any information as to the whereabouts of this traitorous pair. The clue is slight enough, but it may serve in default of a better, and I must set my wits to work to make it useful."
So the night went on; and the Mogg household, the proprietors themselves in the back-kitchen; the circulating librarian in the parlours; the Italian nobleman, who dealt in cameos an coral and bric-a-brac jewelry, in the drawing-room; the Belgian basso, who smoked such strong tobacco, and cleared his throat with such alarming vehemence, in the second floor back; and the German teacher, in ignorance of his intended forcible change of domicile, in the attic; all these slept the sleep of the just, and snored the snores c the weary; while Pauline, half undressed, lay on her bed, with eyes indeed half closed, but with her brain active and at work. In the middle of the night, warned by the rapid decrease of her candle that in a few minutes she would be in darkness, she rose from the bed, and taking from her carpet-bag a small neat blotting-book, she sat dowat the table, and in a thin, clear, legible hand, to the practised eye eminently suggestive of hotel bills, wrote the following letter:
"19A Poland-street, Soho.
"Monsieur,--As a Frenchwoman domiciled in England, the name of Monsieur Calverley has become familiar to me as that of a gentleman--ah, the true English word!--who is renowned as one of the most constant and liberal benefactors to all kinds of charities for distressed foreigners. Do not start, monsieur; do not turn aside or put away this letter in the idea that you have already arrived exactly at its meaning and intention. Naturally enough you think that the writer is about to throw herself on your mercy, and to implore you for money, or for admission into one of those asylums towards the support of which you do so much. It is not so, monsieur; though, were my circumstances different, it is to you I should apply, knowing that your ear is never deaf to such complaint. I have no want of money, though my soul is crushed; and I am well and strong in body, though my heart is wounded and bleeding, calamities for which, even in England, there are no hospitals nor doctors. Yet, monsieur, am I one of that clientèle which you have so nobly made your own--the foreigners in distress. Do you think that the only distressed foreigners are the people who want to give lessons, or get orders for wine and cigars, the poor governesses, the demoiselles de magasin, the émigrés of the Republic and the Empire? No, there is another kind of distressed foreigner,--the woman with a small sum, on which she must live for the rest of her days, in penury if she manages ill, in decent thrift if she manages well. Who will guide her? I am such a woman, monsieur. To my own country, where I have lost all ties, and where remain to me but sad memories, I will not return. In this land, where, if I have no ties, yet have I no sad memories, I will remain. I have a small sum of money, on the interest of which I must exist; and to you I apply, monsieur; you, the merchant prince, the patron and benefactor of my countrymen, to advise in the investment of this poor sum, and keep me from the hands of charlatans and swindlers, who otherwise would rob me of it. I await your gracious answer,
"Monsieur; and am
"Your servant,
"PALMYRE DU TERTRE."
The next morning Pauline conveyed this letter to the office in Mincing-lane, and asked to see Mr. Calverley; but on being told by a smart clerk that Mr. Calverley was out of town, visiting the iron works in the North, and would not be back for some days, she left the letter in the clerk's hands, and begged for an answer at his chief's convenience.