"What! that she-devil again? The diabolical wife of poor David, as beautiful as she is infamous! For what purpose, monseigneur?"
"For what purpose, Sir Walter Murphy? Ask that question, in a month hence, of the notary, Jacques Ferrand."
CHAPTER VI.
THE ANONYMOUS LETTER.
Towards ten o'clock in the evening of the same day in which Fleur-de-Marie was carried off by the Chouette and Schoolmaster, a man on horseback arrived at the Bouqueval farm, representing himself as coming from M. Rodolph to tranquillise Madame Georges as to the safety of her young friend, and to assure her of her safe return ere long. The man further stated that M. Rodolph, having very important reasons for making the request, particularly desired no letters might be addressed to him at Paris for the present; but that, in the event of Madame Georges having anything particular to communicate, the messenger now sent would take charge of it, and deliver it punctually.
This pretended envoy on the part of Rodolph was, in fact, an emissary sent by Sarah, who, by this stratagem, effected the twofold purpose of quieting the apprehensions of Madame Georges and also obtaining a delay of several days ere Rodolph learned that the Goualeuse had been carried off; during which interval Sarah hoped to have induced the notary, Jacques Ferrand, to promote her unworthy attempt to impose a supposititious child on Rodolph, after the manner which has already been related. Nor was this all the evil planned by the countess; she ardently desired to get rid of Madame d'Harville, on whose account she entertained very serious misgivings, and whose destruction she had so nearly compassed, but for the timely interposition of Rodolph.
On the day following that in which the marquis followed his wife into the house in the Rue du Temple, Tom repaired thither, and, by skilfully drawing Madame Pipelet into conversation, contrived to learn from her how a young and elegantly dressed lady, upon the point of being surprised by her husband, had been preserved through the presence of mind and cleverness of a lodger in the house, named M. Rodolph.
Once informed of this circumstance, and possessing no positive proof of the assignation made by Clémence with M. Charles Robert, Sarah conceived a plan evidently more hateful than the former: she resolved to despatch a second anonymous letter to M. d'Harville, calculated to bring about a complete rupture between himself and Rodolph; or, failing that, to infuse into the mind of the marquis suspicions so unworthy of his wife and friend as should induce him to forbid Madame d'Harville ever admitting the prince into her society.