“More than ever; and a pious woman too, and a woman who has two prayer-books, since she could cut up one to write to you.”
“And you hope to find the mutilated book?”
“I do, thanks to the opportunity I have of making an immediate search; which I will set about at once.”
Saying this, he sat down, and rapidly scratched off a few lines on a slip of paper, which he folded up, and put in his vest-pocket.
“Are you ready to go to M. Fauvel’s? Yes? Come on, then; we have certainly earned our breakfast to-day.”
VIII
When Raoul de Lagors spoke of M. Fauvel’s extraordinary dejection, he had not exaggerated.
Since the fatal day when, upon his denunciation, his cashier had been arrested, the banker, this active, energetic man of business, had been a prey to the most gloomy melancholy, and absolutely refused to take any interest in his affairs, seldom entering the banking-house.
He, who had always been so domestic, never came near his family except at meals, when he would swallow a few mouthfuls, and hastily leave the room.