"I did not ask you for the money, monsieur, and if you—"
"I mean what I say. Pay yourself, and don't talk any more about it."
After he had received the change due him the stranger left the café. Almost at the same instant, the lady dressed in mourning came out of the adjoining house, and started down the street in the opposite direction from that which the gentleman had taken.
As they passed each other, their eyes met. The man paused for an instant, as if the sight of this woman aroused some vague recollection, then, thinking his memory must have deceived him, he walked on up the street.
CHAPTER IX.
A STRANGE MEETING.
BUT before the man with the cigar had gone a dozen yards, his first impression reasserted itself so vividly that he turned, almost involuntarily, to take another look at the lady in mourning.
She, too, turned almost simultaneously, but seeing that the man she had noticed had done the same thing, she hastily turned her head and walked on at a rather more rapid pace. Nevertheless, as she crossed the street to enter the garden of the Luxembourg, she could not resist the temptation to cast another quick glance behind her, and, as she did so, she saw that the man with the cigar was still standing in the same place watching her. Angry at having been caught in the act of thus violating the rules of good breeding a second time, she hastily lowered her black veil, and, quickening her pace still more, entered the garden. The man with the cigar, after a moment's hesitation, hurriedly retraced his steps, and, on reaching the entrance to the garden, saw the young woman some distance ahead of him in the broad path leading to the Observatory.
One of those peculiar instincts which often apprise us of things that we cannot see made the young woman feel almost certain that she was followed. She hesitated a long time before she could make up her mind to again satisfy herself of the fact, however; but she was about to yield to the temptation when she heard hurried footsteps behind her, then some one passed her.
It was the man with the cigar. He walked on until he was about twenty yards ahead of her, then turned, resolutely approached the young woman, and raising his hat, said, with perfect politeness:
"Madame, I ask a thousand pardons for thus accosting you."