“Ah! fate is against us!” exclaimed Lecoq with an oath. “I run on in advance to Madame Milner’s house, so that May shan’t see her. I invent an excuse to send her out of the hotel, and yet they meet each other.”
Father Absinthe gave a despairing gesture. “Ah! if I had known!” he murmured; “but you did not tell me to prevent May from speaking to the passers-by.”
“Never mind, my old friend,” said Lecoq, consolingly; “it couldn’t have been helped.”
While this conversation was going on, the fugitive had reached the Faubourg Montmartre, and his pursuers were obliged to hasten forward and get closer to their man, so that they might not lose him in the crowd.
“Now,” resumed Lecoq when they had overtaken him, “give me the particulars. Where did they meet?”
“In the Rue Saint-Quentin.”
“Which saw the other first?”
“May.”
“What did the woman say? Did you hear any cry of surprise?”
“I heard nothing, for I was quite fifty yards off; but by the woman’s manner I could see she was stupefied.”