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"Marion de Lorme'! Who is Marion de Lorme"?" and, when he has said it to himself half a dozen times, he may say it to some other, and that other may know. "A bird of the air shall carry the voice."

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'Have you seen Hugo himself?' asked Lucien.

He said it shyly, as if he had dared to wonder if Le Romain were in love.

'What a strange question! Why, I was one of the two that escorted him home to the rue Notre-Damedes-Champs every night when the dirty classicists threatened to kill him if he did not withdraw "Hernani." A good way round it was to go, for we were living then in the Boulevard Montmartre.'

'What is he like?'

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Magnificent! The lion and the lamb. The grandest fellow in the world. A man to die for, and thank God that you had the chance of it.'

'Ah!' said Lucien.

'He is sorrowful enough just now, though. Nothing but stern necessity would have made me leave Paris. Poor Ernest de Saxe-Cobourg died of the cholera about a month ago. He worshipped the ground that Hugo treads on. He could not bear to feel that they had the river between them; and when Hugo moved to the rue Jean-Goujon, de Saxe-Cobourg moved too. Well, there's a darker river between them now.'

'Victor Hugo mourned for him! Who was this man?

'A son of the duke of Cobourg. His beautiful Greek mother lived with him. The father made them some allowance, I believe. The boy shrank from making

acquaintances; but if he was shy and reserved out in the world, he made up for it among his boon companions. You should have heard him on the first night of "Hernani." Not Théo himself in his scarlet waistcoat roared louder than he did, and he went fortyfour times.'

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'I wonder why he cared about the world!' said Lucien, pursuing his own train of thought. What was it to him that his father would not, or could not, act a father's part? God made us; we are the sons of God.'

"You think so? For my own part, I acknowledge a prejudice in favour of having parents; but, then, I am old-fashioned, except in literature.'

'I wish I had known my mother,' Lucien said.

'It was his mother who killed that poor Ernest,' said René gravely. She would not do what the doctor ordered, because she thought it cruel. When all hope was over, she fell at Hugo's feet; she thought that he could give her back her child; she would not believe that she had lost him. Hugo spent the whole night sitting by the dead body, trying to calm her. They say she was frantic. Afterwards he nearly lost his own little boy; he cannot endure the sight of the black flag at the end of the street since. It is an ugly thing, cholera.'

'I would rather die of anything else. Why does he not leave Paris?'

'He cannot bear to be alone now when it grows dark; he needs his friends. His eyes are bad also; he has gazed too much on the setting sun.'

'Ah, well,' said Lucien, the man who wrote "Marion" might die to-morrow.'

'You would not say so if you saw him. It is impos

Besides,

sible to think of death at the same moment. he is bound to avenge "Marion." Think how the public treated her!'

'If I may ask the question,' Lucien said, 'why did you omit her name on the walls of St. Benoît?'

'The cooking was too bad,' said René; 'the wine was not worthy of her. As far as I am concerned, St. Benoît may go without the knowledge of her for ever.'

'But you have taken time by the forelock here; you did not wait to prove the cooking.'

'No; I must confess that I have an idle habit of sleep in the morning. I am an inveterate card-player. When I can find no one else to play with, I play cards with myself. Are you a friend of whist, by the way?' 'I have never touched a card in my life except once, and then with my foot.'

'Ah, that's a pity! Well, I am reduced to my own fellowship. I shall sit up till my candle is burnt out, and in the morning I shall wake only just in time to set forth. That is why I took care to insure "Marion's place overnight; for I am running a race with Time, and I must be even with him the day after to-morrow.'

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'You remind me of my own obligations. I, too, am bound to be at a certain château the day after tomorrow.'

The young man laid down his knife and fork.

'I thought so,' he said; ' I thought you were one of the true men.'

CHAPTER IX

THE PEASANT BOY IN THE FOREST

PERHAPS the look of surprise that followed his last remark chilled René, for he fell silent and betook himself to his cards. The uncomfortable sense of a pause, just when he was about to give or to receive fresh confidence, drove Lucien upstairs to bed.

'One of the true men!' What did it mean? An odd coincidence, he supposed-that was all. Some secret club for the worship of Hugo, about which René chose to weave an absurd mystery. It provoked him somewhat, and cooled his desire to make friends. He would start early, before René got up; it was better that they should not meet again.

Alas! the power of spirits to disturb each other is not limited by their bodily presence. He could not get rid of René, and solitude was no longer what it had been. René came between Lucien and the sky. His words were blown about in the wind. Sensitive as Lucien was to every shade of opinion, strong excitement, or the living calm of nature, would for the moment banish his consciousness of self, but it always returned.

One of the true men! What was a true man? A man with a name of some kind; that was certain. As a child Lucien had pondered much over his name. He would sit in the sun under the great sails of the windmill where he lived, thinking and wondering whether

it were for ever part of himself, whether it were, like that shadow of his on the ground, attached merely to outward form-a thing with which the soul of him had no connection. Into so deep a trance would he fall that he never heard the voices of the mill people calling. When he awoke he would clasp his hands together until they hurt, and cry, I am still Lucien!' Later on he recollected asking his foster-mother who bestowed that name on him.

She answered that it was St. Lucy, and told him how she loved St. Lucy more than other saints, though she loved them all. To this celestial friend she had prayed in her deep longing for a child. One wild December night-the last night of the year-she went to her door, and there he lay, a babe of but a few weeks old. The linen in which he was wrapped had no mark upon it, nor was there anything to show who he might be. Folded up in the robe was a canvas bag with a considerable sum of money in silver, round its neck a label, on which was printed in letters like those of a book, 'If he lives he must receive the education of a gentleman.' A few days after, a little silver key was dropped in at her window-by whom she did not know. She hung it round the neck of the child. To the name of Lucien she had added that of Sylvestre because St. Sylvestre is the patron of New Year's Eve. All this happened, she told him, before her marriage with the worthy miller. She had not cared much for him, but she felt for his motherless child, and she feared St. Lucy, who had given her one for her own, might be vexed if she refused. Spite of her tenderness, however, the child died, and the miller seemed to bear the strange infant a grudge for it. He never

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