“But surely, my dear child, Jacques told you—you—something more precise?”

“No.”

“You did not ask him even what those improbable facts were?”

“Oh, yes!”

“Well?”

“He said that I was the very last person who could be told.”

“That man ought to be burnt over a slow fire,” said M. de Chandore to himself. Then he added in a louder voice,—

“And you do not think all this very strange, very extraordinary?”

“It seems to me horrible!”

“I understand. But what do you think of Jacques?”