You said, aunt, that the talk went in the conciergerie of her father's hotel, that she would have nothing to do with this cousin whom I put out of the way to-day ?' "'So the servants said.

How could I know?
All I know is, that he left off coming to our hotel, and that at one time before then he had never been two days absent.' "'So much the better for him.

He suffers now for having come between me and my object--in trying to snatch her away out of my sight.

Take you warning, Pierre! I did not like your meddling to-night.' And so he went off, leaving Madam Babette rocking herself backwards and forwards, in all the depression of spirits consequent upon the reaction after the brandy, and upon her knowledge of her nephew's threatened purpose combined.
"In telling you most of this, I have simply repeated Pierre's account, which I wrote down at the time.

But here what he had to say came to a sudden break; for, the next morning, when Madame Babette rose, Virginie was missing, and it was some time before either she, or Pierre, or Morin, could get the slightest clue to the missing girl.
"And now I must take up the story as it was told to the Intendant Flechier by the old gardener Jacques, with whom Clement had been lodging on his first arrival in Paris.