“Mademoiselle Elizabeth, shall we have a little talk?... You see I simply cannot tell you everything, yet I would gladly help you!... But first and foremost, I beg of you to put quite out of your mind this hope that your brother is still alive!”

Sadly Elizabeth wiped away her tears, and in a voice which she tried to steady, said:

“Oh, what is to become of me! I thought I had found in you a support, a help, and now you abandon me! And I had put my faith in your goodness of heart!... There are your articles on the one hand, and your attitude on the other – what am I to make of it? It is driving me to despair! And if you only knew how much I need to be supported, encouraged; I feel as if I should go out of my senses – out of my mind... and I am alone, so terribly alone!” The poor girl’s voice was broken by sobs, her whole body was shaken by them. Fandor went up to her, and spoke to her in a low tone, affectionately; he felt great sympathy and an immense pity for this unhappy young creature, who also charmed and attracted him. He tried to console her, and to change the current of her thoughts.

“Come now, Mademoiselle, do try to control yourself a little! I have promised to help you, and I certainly shall – you may be sure of it. But consider now – if I am to be of real use to you, I must know a little about you: you, yourself, your family, your brother; who your friends are, and who are your enemies! I must enter into your existence, not as a judge, but as a comrade who is interested in all that concerns you. Will you not confide in me? Once I know what there is to know, we might then unite our efforts to some purpose, and find out what really has happened, since the mystery remains inexplicable.”

Elizabeth Dollon felt the young man was sincere, and that what he said in such a gentle voice was true.

This poor human waif asked no more than to be allowed to cling to whoever would take pity on her and be kind. She now spoke to Jérôme Fandor of her childhood, without suspecting in the least that the same Jérôme Fandor – Charles Rambert – used to play with her in those days.

She mentioned the assassination of the Marquise de Langrune – the first tragic episode of her life; then had come the horrible death of her father, old Steward Dollon, who had passed from the service of the Marquise to that of the Baroness de Vibray, and then perished, the victim of a criminal.