These two sentences are the simplest expression of the many ideas that
Ginevra turned over in her mind for two days. On the third day, in

spite of her haste to be first at the studio, she found Mademoiselle
Thirion already there, having come in a carriage.

Ginevra and her enemy observed each other for a long time, but they
made their faces impenetrable. Amelie had seen the handsome head of

the mysterious man, but, fortunately, and unfortunately also, the
Imperial eagles and uniform were so placed that she did not see them

through the crevice in the partition. She was lost in conjectures.
Suddenly Servin came in, much earlier than usual.

"Mademoiselle Ginevra," he said, after glancing round the studio, "why
have you placed yourself there? The light is bad. Come nearer to the

rest of the young ladies and pull down that curtain a little."
Then he sat down near Laure, whose work deserved his most cordial

attention.
"Well, well!" he cried; "here, indeed, is a head extremely well done.

You'll be another Ginevra."
The master then went from easel to easel, scolding, flattering,

jesting, and making, as usual, his jests more dreaded than his
reprimands. Ginevra had not obeyed the professor's order, but remained

at her post, firmlyresolved not to quit it. She took a sheet of paper
and began to sketch in sepia the head of the hidden man. A work done

under the impulse of an emotion has always a stamp of its own. The
faculty of giving to representations of nature or of thought their

true coloring constitutes genius, and often, in this respect, passion
takes the place of it. So, under the circumstances in which Ginevra

now found herself, the intuition which she owed to a powerful effect
upon her memory, or, possibly, to necessity, that mother of great

things, lent her, for the moment, a supernatural talent. The head of
the young officer was dashed upon the paper in the midst of an awkward

trembling which she mistook for fear, and in which a physiologist
would have recognized the fire of inspiration. From time to time she

glanced furtively at her companions, in order to hide the sketch if
any of them came near her. But in spite of her watchfulness, there was

a moment when she did not see the eyeglass of the pitiless Amelie
turned full upon the drawing from the shelter of a great portfolio.

Mademoiselle Thirion, recognizing the portrait of the mysterious man,
showed herself abruptly, and Ginevra hastily covered the sheet of

paper.
"Why do you stay there in spite of my advice, mademoiselle?" asked the

professor, gravely.
The pupil turned her easel so that no one but the master could see the

sketch, which she placed upon it, and said, in an agitated voice:--
"Do you not think, as I do, that the light is very good? Had I not

better remain here?"
Servin turned pale. As nothing escapes the piercing eyes of malice,

Mademoiselle Thirion became, as it were, a sharer in the sudden
emotion of master and pupil.

"You are right," said Servin; "but really," he added, with a forced
laugh, "you will soon come to know more than I do."

A pause followed, during which the professor studied the drawing of
the officer's head.

"It is a masterpiece! worthy of Salvator Rosa!" he exclaimed, with the
energy of an artist.

All the pupils rose on hearing this, and Mademoiselle Thirion darted
forward with the velocity of a tiger on its prey. At this instant, the

prisoner, awakened, perhaps, by the noise, began to move. Ginevra
knocked over her stool, said a few incoherent sentences, and began to

laugh; but she had thrown the portrait into her portfolio before
Amelie could get to her. The easel was now surrounded; Servin

descanted on the beauty of the copy which his favorite pupil was then
making, and the whole class was duped by this stratagem, except

Amelie, who, slipping behind her companions, attempted to open the
portfolio where she had seen Ginevra throw the sketch. But the latter

took it up without a word, and placed it in front of her. The two
young girls then looked at each other fixedly, in silence.

"Come, mesdemoiselles, take your places," said Servin. "If you wish to
do as well as Mademoiselle di Piombo, you mustn't be always talking

fashions and balls, and trifling away your time as you do."
When they were all reseated before their easels, Servin sat down

beside Ginevra.
"Was it not better that I should be the one to discover the mystery

rather than the others?" asked the girl, in a low voice.
"Yes," replied the painter, "you are one of us, a patriot; but even if

you were not, I should still have confided the matter to you."
Master and pupil understood each other, and Ginevra no longer feared

to ask:--
"Who is he?"

"An intimate friend of Labedoyere, who contributed more than any other
man, except the unfortunatecolonel, to the union of the 7th regiment

with the grenadiers of Elba. He was a major in the Imperial guard and
was at Waterloo."

"Why not have burned his uniform and shako, and supplied him with
citizen's clothes?" said Ginevra, impatiently.

"He will have them to-night."
"You ought to have closed the studio for some days."

"He is going away."
"Then they'll kill him," said the girl. "Let him stay here with you

till the present storm is over. Paris is still the only place in
France where a man can be hiddensafely. Is he a friend of yours?" she

asked.
"No; he has no claim upon me but that of his ill-luck. He came into my

hands in this way. My father-in-law, who returned to the army during
the campaign, met this young fellow, and very cleverly rescued him

from the claws of those who captured Labedoyere. He came here to
defend the general, foolish fellow!"

"Do you call him that!" cried Ginevra, casting a glance of
astonishment at the painter, who was silent for a moment.

"My father-in-law is too closely watched to be able to keep him in his
own house," he resumed. "So he brought him to me, by night, about a

week ago. I hoped to keep him out of sight in this corner, the only
spot in the house where he could be safe."

"If I can be useful to you, employ me," said Ginevra. "I know the
Marechal de Feltre."

"Well, we'll see," replied the painter.
This conversation lasted too long not to be noticed by all the other

girls. Servin left Ginevra, went round once more to each easel, and
gave such long lessons that he was still there at the hour when the

pupils were in the habit of leaving.
"You are forgetting your bag, Mademoiselle Thirion," said the

professor, running after the girl, who was now condescending to the
work of a spy to satisfy her jealousy.

The baffled pupil returned for the bag, expressing surprise at her
carelessness; but this act of Servin's was to her fresh proof of the

existence of a mystery, the importance of which was evident. She now
ran noisily down the staircase, and slammed the door which opened into

the Servins' apartment, to give an impression that she had gone; then
she softly returned and stationed herself outside the door of the

studio.
CHAPTER III

LABEDOYERE'S FRIEND
When the painter and Ginevra thought themselves alone, Servin rapped

in a peculiar manner on the door of the dark garret, which turned at
once on its rusty and creaking hinges. Ginevra then saw a tall and

well-made young man, whose Imperial uniform set her heart to beating.
The officer had one arm in a sling, and the pallor of his face

revealed sharp suffering. Seeing an unknown woman, he recoiled.
Amelie, who was unable to look into the room, the door being closed,