"Certainly. Why did you not politely inform your acquaintances of the sad loss which you have had the misfortune to sustain, etc?"
"I do not know what you mean, M. le marquis," replied Macreuse, who had now recovered his composure, in a measure.
"Nonsense! I, who am a great church-goer, as every one knows, heard you ask a priest at St. Thomas d'Aquin the other day to say a certain number of masses for the repose of your mother's soul."
"But, monsieur—"
"But, monsieur, there can be no doubt of the truth of my statement, as you were quite overcome with grief and despair, apparently, while praying for this beloved parent in the Chapel of the Virgin,—so completely overcome, in fact, that your good friends, the beadles, were obliged to carry you in a dead swoon to the sacristy,—a piece of shameful deception on your part that would have amused if it had not revolted me."
Staggered for a moment by this unexpected attack, the abbé's protégé had now recovered all his native impudence.
"Every one will understand why I could not and should not answer such an extraordinary—such a truly distressing question. The secret of one's prayers is sacred—"
"That is true!" cried several voices, indignantly. "Such an attack is outrageous!"
"Did any one ever hear the like of it?"
As we have remarked before, M. de Macreuse, like all persons of his stamp, had his partisans, and these partisans very naturally had a strong antipathy for M. de Maillefort, who hunted down everything false and cowardly in the most pitiless fashion, so a still louder murmur of disapproval was heard, and such expressions as: "What a distressing scene!" "Did you ever hear anything as scandalous!" and "How brutal!" were distinctly audible. But the marquis, no whit disconcerted, allowed the storm to spend itself, until Macreuse, emboldened by his opponent's silence said, boldly: