“And yet there is not a nook or corner for miles around which we have not explored.”
“True; but we must extend the circle of our investigations.”
The priest, now, was only striving to gain time, knowing full well that it is the sovereign balm for all sorrows.
His confidence, which had been very great at first, had been sensibly diminished by the responses of an old woman, who passed for one of the greatest gossips in the community.
Adroitly interrogated, the worthy dame replied that she knew nothing of such a child, but that there must be one in the neighborhood, since it was the third time she had been questioned on the subject.
Intense as was his surprise, the abbe succeeded in hiding it.
He set the old gossip to talking, and after a two hours’ conversation, he arrived at the conclusion that two persons besides Maurice were searching for Marie-Anne’s child.
Why, with what aim, and who these persons could be the abbe was unable to ascertain.
“Ah! rascals have their uses after all,” he thought. “If we only had a man like Chupin to set upon the track!”
But the old poacher was dead, and his eldest son—the one who knew Blanche de Courtornieu’s secret—was in Paris.