“Pass it out here.”
I took an old newspaper out of my pocket, and—in a wind which blew almost hard enough to put the street-lamps out, in a downpour of snow which almost blinded me—I managed to wrap up and address that paper to Mademoiselle Prefere.
While I was writing I asked Jeanne,
“When the postman passes he puts the papers and letters in the box, doesn’t he? He rings the bell and goes away? Then the servant opens the letter-box and takes whatever she finds there to Mademoiselle Prefere immediately; is not that about the way the thing is managed whenever anything comes by post?”
Jeanne thought it was.
“Then we shall soon see. Jeanne, go and watch again; and, as soon as the servant leaves the lodge, open the door and come out here to me.”
Having said this, I put my newspaper in the box, gave the bell a tremendous pull, and then hid myself in the embrasure of a neighbouring door.
I might have been there several minutes, when the little door quivered, then opened, and a young girl’s head made its appearance through the opening. I took hold of it; I pulled it towards me.
“Come, Jeanne! come!”
She stared at me uneasily. Certainly she must have been afraid that I had gone mad; but, on the contrary, I was very rational indeed.