of much consequence,' he added, as he returned the fragment of a small steel instrument which Louis had discovered still sticking in the back of the window. She used it, I suppose, to force back the bolt. It looks like the sharp point of a pair of scissors.'

'No,' said Louis, quietly, it is part of a graver's tool. Not a very likely instrument to be found in a woman's repository; and, trifling as it is, it may be a clue to what I want. Are there many engravers at St. Bignold's?'

'Let me see. Engravers? No, only one; Clement Lebrun by name.' 'I seem to have heard of him before.'

'Probably,' replied the sergeant, drily. It was he who saw Mademoiselle Julie pass along the balcony.'

'Then he lives close by?'

'Yes, and no. It is a good quarter of a mile by the road to reach the Rue Sylvaine, and yet,' pointing out of the window, that is his house right opposite.'

Louis gave a start as he said this, and leaned far out of the window, as if he longed to clear the narrow space between at a bound, then drawing back examined the balcony more minutely than before.

'You have an idea, my friend,' again suggested the sergeant. 'I have.'

'And I also.'

Louis looked keenly at his companion, but could read nothing in his imperturbable countenance. Let us seek this Lebrun,' he said at last.

'He is not a man to be trifled with,' said the sergeant.

'Nor am I,' was the calm, decided

answer.

After tracing several intricate winding streets they reached the Rue Sylvaine, and entered Lebrun's house, in everything a contrast to that they had just quitted. It was as much crowded with human beings as the Hotel de l'Orme was deserted; as full of life and sound as the other was empty of all but fearful memories.

Lebrun received them coldly but courteously, and learning from the sergeant that Louis was a friend of

the de l'Orme family, and desirous to know all he could tell of the murder, he gave his story calmly and succinctly.

'All he knew,' he said, ' was that, when sitting at work the morning after the murder, he had been attracted by seeing a girl step out from the opposite window, and, walking along the narrow ledge, enter the one adjoining it. It had struck him at the time as peculiar, and on hearing of the murder he naturally mentioned what he had seen.'

'And you could speak with authority,' said the sergeant; for, though Madame de l'Orme's house is some distance from this by the road, I should say that her windows were within thirty feet of yours. What say you, Monsieur Louis?'

Thirty,' said Louis, leaning out of the wide casement, to do which more easily he removed a pot of flowers which stood against the balustrade. 'I should say twenty was nearer the mark.'

'I never measured the distance,' said the engraver, sullenly.

His change of tone struck both the sergeant and Louis, but neither spoke in return, although each devoted himself to a careful examination of Lebrun's premises; Louis by removing the flower-pots in the balcony one by one and examining the upper edge of the balustrade, the sergeant by scanning closely but unobtrusively the furniture of the workshop. There were only two things which seemed to either suspicious; but as they tallied with the idea that had occurred to both they observed them minutely. One was, that the plants in the window were far more valuable than seemed consistent with the poverty of the engraver; the other that, besides the various things essential to his trade, there was a very long plank of wood leaning against the wall in the darkest corner of the room. The sergeant also perceived that Lebrun's eyes furtively followed his as they rested inquisitively on the hidden plank.

'Have you any more questions to ask me, gentlemen?' the engraver at last said, in a tone that had less of courtesy than the words he used,

'for I am a poor man, and cannot afford to lose the daylight.'

'Yes,' said Louis, turning from the window. 'I wish you to tell me what use you make of this?' selecting a particular tool from those that were lying on the table.

'It is a graver,' said the man at

once.

'I thought, so; and this is one also, is it not?" and he took from his pocket the fragment he had found at the Hotel de l'Orme.

'It seems so,' stammered Lebrun, growing suddenly pale; but added quickly, Why do you ask me?'

Because I wish to know whether it is yours?'

Before he could make up his mind how to answer the apparently simple, but evidently embarrassing question, the sergeant tapped him on the shoulder. 'Mon ami,' he said, 'I have measured the plank in the corner of your chamber. I find it is twenty feet long. Will you permit me to remove one or two of your beautiful flowers, and, resting it on the part of the balustrade already broken, thrust it across the street towards the Hotel de l'Orme? It seems to me it will find a restingplace on the broken part of the balustrade opposite madame's chamber window. What think you, Monsieur Louis?'

During this courteous address Lebrun's paleness changed to something still more ghastly-a grey hue, like that of death; and when, a moment afterwards, the sergeant, suddenly changing his tone, said, 'Clement Lebrun, I arrest you as the murderer of Madame de l'Orme,' he made no effort to refute the accusation, but with the calmness of despair permitted the arrest to take place. Little more was necessary to prove Lebrun's guilt and Julie's innocence. As Louis had said, the finding of the broken graver, though a trifle, was the clue to the whole mystery. The position of Lebrun's

house, as respected the Hotel de l'Orme, naturally suggested to a military eye the possible means of passing from one to another, which the broken edge of the carved balustrade on either side confirmed. The rest was easy, and was made certain by the confession of the murderer. He had long resolved to possess himself of the jewels and money which Madame de l'Orme was said to keep in her own chamber, and had intended to secrete himself there during her absence at the ball and secure his booty at leisure. Julie's presence had prevented him. His was the face she had seen in the mirror; and her unconscious interference with his projects then had suggested to him afterwards the fiendish idea of turning the suspicion of the murder on her. His success had been more complete than he had dared to hope. But it is seldom indeed that, to use a Scotch expression, a murderer is not 'so left to himself' as to leave one fatal clue to his crime where all else has been concealed with consummate ability. In Lebrun's case there were two-the broken tool and the plank of wood by which he had bridged over the abyss. But for this oversight on his part the innocent must have suffered for the guilty.

A month later and Julie's love dream was fulfilled. Kneeling in her white dress before the altar of the chapel of the château, the wreath of orange-flowers on her head, and Monsieur de l'Orme himself honouring the ceremony by his presence, she became the wife of her faithful Louis; and each was dearer to the other because each had, though in such different circumstances, stood face to face with the grim king of. terrors, Death, and been rescued from him by an arm more mighty still, in whom both had trusted even when hope had almost become despair.

M. M. B.