"Yes, sir. He wished for a room near the Temple or the Arsenal; there was one to be let here, it suited him."
"And you never thought of confiding your sorrows to M. Germain?" asked
Rudolph.
"No, sir; he was also a dupe of M. Ferrand's; he said he was hard and exacting, but he thought him the most honest man in the world. I passed these five months in tears, in continual agony. With care, I had concealed my situation from all eyes, but I could hope to do so no longer. The future was for me most dreadful; M. Ferrand had declared he would not keep me any longer with him. I was thus about to be deprived of the small resource that aided our family to live. Cursed, driven away by my father—for, after the falsehoods that I had told him to dissipate his suspicions, he would not believe me to be the victim of M. Ferrand—what was to become of me? where was I to fly? where to find a refuge? I had then a very wicked idea. I confess this, sir, because I wish to conceal nothing, even that which may cast suspicion on me, and also to show you to what an extremity I was reduced by the cruelty of M. Ferrand. If I had yielded to a fatal thought, would he not have been an accomplice of my crime?"
After a moment's silence, Louise resumed, with an effort, and in a trembling voice, "I had heard from the portress that a quack lived in the house—and—" She could not finish.
Rudolph remembered that at his first call on Mrs. Pipelet he had received from the postman, in her absence, a letter written on coarse paper, in a disguised hand, and on which he had remarked the traces of tears. "And you did write him, unhappy child, three days since? On this letter you have wept; your writing was disguised."
Louise looked at Rudolph with affright. "How do you know, sir?"
"Calm yourself. I was alone in the lodge of Mrs. Pipelet when this letter was handed in, and it was my chance to receive it."
"Yes, sir; in this letter, without signature, I wrote to M. Bradamanti, that, not daring to come to him, I begged he would meet me that evening near the Château dead. I was half crazy. I wished to ask his fearful advice. I left my master's house to meet him; but my reason returned. I regained the house; I did not see him. Thus the scene took place, from the consequences of which I am now suffering— M. Ferrand believing me gone out for two hours, while after a very short time I returned."
"In pacing before the little door of the garden, to my great astonishment I saw it open. I entered that way, and I carried the key to the cabinet of M. Ferrand, where it was ordinarily kept. This was, next to his bed-chamber, the most retired place in the house: it was there he gave his secret audiences. You will see, sir, why I give you these details. Knowing all the ways of the house very well, after having crossed the dining-room, which was lighted, I entered into the saloon in the dark, then to the cabinet, as I said before. The door of his chamber opened at the moment I placed the key on the table. Hardly had my master perceived me by the light which was burning in his chamber, than he closed the door quickly on a person whom I could not see. Then he threw himself on me, seized me by the throat as if he wished to strangle me, and said to me in a low tone, at once furious and alarmed, 'You were spying; you listened at the door; what did you hear? Answer, answer! or I'll strangle you.' But changing his mind, without giving me time to say a word, he pushed me backward into the dining-room. The office was open; he threw me into it brutally, and locked the door."
"And you heard nothing of his conversation?"