He had risen, feeling that anything they might add, would cause uneasiness.
"So," he concluded, his eyes dim, his face expressionless, "I shall complete my inquiry, bearing your scruples in mind. Of course, if we have not absolute proof against this Cabuche, it would be better not to risk the useless scandal of a trial. He shall be set at liberty and watched."
The chief secretary, on the threshold of his study, made a final display of effusive amiability.
"Monsieur Denizet," said he, "we entirely rely on your great tact and high rectitude."
M. Camy-Lamotte, alone again, had the curiosity which, however, was useless, now, to compare the page penned by Séverine with the unsigned note he had found among the papers of President Grandmorin. The resemblance proved complete. He folded up the letter and put it carefully away, for, if he had not breathed a word about it to the examining-magistrate, he nevertheless considered such an arm worth keeping. And as he recalled the profile of this little woman, so delicate, and yet so strong in her nervous resistance, he gave an indulgent, mocking shrug of the shoulders. Ah! those creatures, when they mean it!
When Séverine reached the Rue Cardinet at twenty minutes to three, to keep her appointment with Jacques, she found herself before her time. He occupied a small room right at the top of a great house, to which he only ascended at night for the purpose of sleeping. And he slept out twice a week, on the two nights he passed at Havre, between the evening and morning express. On that particular day, however, drenched with rain, broken down with fatigue, he had gone there and thrown himself on his bed. So that Séverine would perhaps have waited for him in vain, had not a quarrel in an adjoining apartment, a husband brutalising his shrieking wife, awakened him. He had washed and dressed in a very bad humour, having recognised her below, on the pavement, while looking out of his garret window.
"So it's you at last!" she exclaimed, when she saw him issue from the front door. "I was afraid I had misunderstood. You really did tell me at the corner of the Rue Saussure——"
And without awaiting his answer, raising her eyes to the house, she remarked:
"So it's there you live?"
Without telling her, he had made the appointment before his own door, because the depôt where they had to go together, was opposite. But her question worried him. He imagined she was going to take advantage of their good fellowship, to ask him to let her see his room, which was so simply furnished, and in such disorder, that he felt ashamed of it.