"What! Has he already seen her?"
"Yesterday. And from what Madame Pipelet told me, I have no doubt but he was fascinated by the creole, for he instantly took her into service."
"Then, monseigneur, the game is won, and ours."
"I hope so. A ferocious cupidity, a brutal passion, have impelled the injurer of Louise Morel to the most odious crimes. It is in his passion and his cupidity that he shall find the terrible punishment of his crimes,—a punishment which, moreover, shall not be without fruit for his victims, for you know the aim of all the Creole's wiles."
"Cecily! Cecily! Never did greater wickedness, never more dangerous corruption, never blacker soul have served for the accomplishment of a more strict morality, a more just result! And David, monseigneur, what does he say to this arrangement?"
"Approves of everything. At the pitch of contempt and horror which he has reached for this creature, he sees in her only the instrument of a just vengeance. 'If this accursed woman ever could deserve any commiseration after all the ill she has done me,' he said to me, 'it would be by devoting herself to the remorseless punishment of this scoundrel, whose exterminating demon she may become.'"
A servant having knocked at the door, Murphy went out, but soon returned with two letters, only one of which was for Rodolph.
"A line from Madame Georges," he said, as he hastily perused it.
"Well, monseigneur, and La Goualeuse?"
"There can be no further doubt," exclaimed Rodolph, after having read, "there is some dark plot afoot. On the evening of the day when the poor girl disappeared from the farm, and at the instant when Madame Georges was about to inform me of this event, a man unknown to her, sent express and on horseback, came as from me to tell her that I was aware of the sudden disappearance of Fleur-de-Marie, and that in a few days I should take her back to the farm. In spite of this, Madame Georges, uneasy at my silence with respect to her protégée, cannot, as she says, resist the desire to hear how her dear daughter is, for so she calls her."