Risler's footprints could be distinguished on the wet ground as far as
the gate of the little garden. He must have gone before daylight, for
the beds of vegetables and flowers were trampled down at random by deep
footprints with long spaces between; there were marks of heels on the
garden-wall and the mortar was crumbled slightly on top. The brother and
sister went out on the road skirting the fortifications. There it was
impossible to follow the footprints. They could tell nothing more than
that Risler had gone in the direction of the Orleans road.

"After all," Mademoiselle Planus ventured to say, "we are very foolish to
torment ourselves about him; perhaps he has simply gone back to the
factory."

Sigismond shook his head. Ah! if he had said all that he thought!

"Return to the house, sister. I will go and see."

And with the old "I haf no gonfidence" he rushed away like a hurricane,
his white mane standing even more erect than usual.

At that hour, on the road near the fortifications, was an endless
procession of soldiers and market-gardeners, guard-mounting, officers'
horses out for exercise, sutlers with their paraphernalia, all the bustle
and activity that is seen in the morning in the neighborhood of forts.
Planus was striding along amid the tumult, when suddenly he stopped. At
the foot of the bank, on the left, in front of a small, square building,
with the inscription.

CITY OF PARIS,
ENTRANCE TO THE QUARRIES,