“What has she done?”
“She has run away with Count Daniel’s courier, and we have been unable to trace her anywhere.”
His wife comes in at the moment he replies, and at these words, which renewed her grief, the poor woman faints away. The keeper, seeing how sincerely I felt for his misery, tells me that this great misfortune befell them only a week before my arrival.
“I know that man l’Aigle,” I say; “he is a scoundrel. Did he ask to marry Lucie?”
“No; he knew well enough that our consent would have been refused!”
“I wonder at Lucie acting in such a way.”
“He seduced her, and her running away made us suspect the truth, for she had become very stout.”
“Had he known her long?”
“About a month after your last visit she saw him for the first time. He must have thrown a spell over her, for our Lucie was as pure as a dove, and you can, I believe, bear testimony to her goodness.”
“And no one knows where they are?”