"Impossible! Her husband has just been the victim of a most afflicting accident: a pistol which he did not know to be loaded went off in his hands, and he was killed on the spot."
"The marquise went instantly to pass the first months of her mourning with her father in Normandy."
"Clotilde, I beseech you, write to her to-day; ask her for all the information in her power, and, as she takes an interest in these poor women, say she cannot find a warmer auxiliary than myself; that my only desire is to find the widow of my friend, and share with her and her daughter the little I possess. They are now all my family."
"Ever the same, always generous and devoted! Rely on me. I will write to-day to Madame d'Harville. Where shall I address my answer?"
"To Asnières Poste-Restante."
"How odd! Why do you live there, and not in Paris?"
"I detest Paris, because of the recollections it excites in me!" said M. de Saint-Remy, with a gloomy air. "My old physician, Doctor Griffon, with whom I have kept up a correspondence, has a small house on the banks of the Seine, near Asnières, which he does not occupy in the winter; he offered it to me; it is almost close to Paris, and there I could be undisturbed, and find the solitude I desire. So I accepted it."
"I will then write to you at Asnières, and I can give you some information which may be useful to you, and which I had from Madame d'Harville. Madame de Fermont's ruin has been occasioned by the roguery of the notary in whose hands all your deceased relative's fortune was deposited. The notary denied that the money was ever placed in his hands."
"The scoundrel! And his name?"