By drawing this small silken curtain a little aside, the marquis could see without being seen, and through the tiny opening he seemed to be watching something or somebody with considerable uneasiness, while Herminie, not daring to question him, gazed at him wonderingly.
The marquis had caught sight of M. de Ravil in the locksmith's shop, and he could still see him talking with the locksmith,—a man with a kind, honest face. He was showing him a key, and evidently giving him some instructions in regard to it, for, taking the key, the locksmith placed it in his vice just as M. de Maillefort's carriage again started on its way towards the Faubourg St. Germain, and M. de Macreuse's new friend, or, rather, his new accomplice, was lost to sight.
"What is the matter, monsieur?" inquired Herminie, seeing that the hunchback had suddenly become thoughtful.
"I just observed an apparently insignificant thing, my dear child, but it makes me a trifle uneasy. I saw a man in a locksmith's shop just now, showing the locksmith a key. I should not even have noticed the fact, though, if I did not know that the man who had the key was a scoundrel, capable of anything, and under certain circumstances the slightest act of a man like that furnishes food for reflection."
"Is the man you refer to unusually tall, and has he a bad, hard face?"
"So you, too, noticed him?"
"I have had only too much cause to do so, monsieur."
"Explain, my dear child."
So Herminie briefly related Ravil's many futile attempts to obtain access to her since the evening he so grossly insulted her while on her way to Madame de Beaumesnil's.
"If the scoundrel is in the habit of hanging around your house, my dear child, it is not so surprising that we should have seen him in a shop in this part of the town. Still, what can have taken him to this locksmith's?" asked the hunchback, thoughtfully. "Since he became so intimate with that rascal, Macreuse, I have been keeping a close watch on both of them. One of my men is shadowing them, for such creatures as they are are never more dangerous than when they are playing dead,—not that I fear them myself; oh, no, but I do fear for Ernestine."