If she cannot descend this evening, I am afraid that you must excuse me too, Monsieur.' I said what was right, and watched her go in; and, as I did so, I loathed my errand, and the mean contemptible curiosity which it had planted in my mind, more than at any former time.

These women--I could find it in my heart to hate them for their frankness, for their foolish confidence, and the silly trustfulness that made them so easy a prey! NOM DE DIEU! What did the woman mean by telling me all this?
To meet me in such a way, to disarm one by such methods, was to take an unfair advantage.

It put a vile--ay, the vilest--aspect, on the work I had to do.
Yet it was very odd! What could M.de Cocheforet mean by returning so soon, if M.de Cocheforet was here?
And, on the other hand, if it was not his unexpected presence that had so upset the house, what was the secret?
Whom had Clon been tracking?
And what was the cause of Madame's anxiety?
In a few minutes I began to grow curious again; and, as the ladies did not appear at supper, I had leisure to give my brain full licence, and, in the course of an hour, thought of a hundred keys to the mystery.

But none exactly fitted the lock, or laid open the secret.
A false alarm that evening helped to puzzle me still more.

I was sitting about an hour after supper, on the same seat in the garden--I had my cloak and was smoking--when Madame came out like a ghost, and, without seeing me, flitted away through the darkness toward the stables.