"And mademoiselle—"
"Attendez," said the abbé, "and you shall hear it all."
The abbé resumed his fork; I filled up the glasses, and he commenced:
"You will remember, mon cher, having described to me the person of the tall pale gentleman who was our neighbor. The description was a very good one, for I recognized him the moment I saw him.
"It was a week or more after you had left for the south, and I had half forgotten—excuse me, mon ami—the curiosity you had felt in the little window in the court; I happened to be a half hour later than usual in returning from mass, and as I passed the hotel at the corner, I saw coming out a tall gentleman, in a cloak trimmed with a little tawny lace, and with an air so different from that of most lodgers in the neighborhood, that I was sure it must be Monsieur Very."
"The very same," said I.
"Indeed," continued the abbé, "I was so struck with his appearance—added to your interest in him—(here the abbé bowed and sipped his wine) that I determined to follow him a short way down the street. He kept through the Rue de Seine, and passing under the colonnade of the Institute, crossed the Pont de Fer, continued along the quay as far as the gates of the garden—into the Rue de Rivoli, and though I thought he would have stopped at some of the cafés in the neighborhood, he did not, but kept steadily on, nor did I give up pursuit until he had taken his place in one of the omnibuses which pass the head of the Rue de la Paix.
"A week after, happening to see him, as I came home from Martin's, under the Odeon, I followed him again: I took a place in the same omnibus at the head of the Rue de la Paix. Opposite the Rue de Lancry he stopped. I stopped a short way above, and stepping back, soon found the poor gentleman picking his feeble paces along the dirty sideway.
"You remember, mon cher, wandering with me in the Rue de Lancry; you remember that it is crooked and long. The poor gentleman found it so; for before he had reached the end he leaned against the wall, apparently overcome with fatigue. I offered him assistance; at first he declined; he told me he was going only to the Hôpital St. Louis, which was now near by. I told him I was going the same way, upon which he took my arm, and we walked together to the gates. The poor gentleman seemed unable or unwilling to talk with me, and at the gates he merely pulled a slip of paper from his pocket to show the concierge, and passed in. I attended him as far as the middle hall in the court, when he kindly thanked me, and turned into one of the male wards. I took occasion presently to look in, and saw my companion half way down the hall, at the bed-side of a very feeble-looking patient of perhaps seven or eight-and-twenty.
"There seemed a degree of familiarity between them, more than would belong to patient and physician. I noticed too that the attendants treated the old gentleman with marked respect; this was, I fancy, however, owing to the old gentleman's air, for not one of them could tell me who he was.