"What should I say about his past, Monsieur? What should I know?"
"You should know more than any one else in Chaudiere. The secrets of his breast might well be bared to you."
She started and crimsoned. Before her eyes there came a mist obscuring the Seigneur, and for an instant shutting out the world. The secrets of his breast—what did he mean? Did he know that on Monsieur's breast was the red scar which . . .
M. Rossignol's voice seemed coming from an infinite distance, and as it came, the mist slowly passed from her eyes.
"You will know, Mademoiselle Rosalie," he was saying, "that while I suggested that the secrets of his breast might well be bared to you, I meant that as an honest lady and faithful postmistress they were not. It was my awkward joke—a stupid gambolling by an old man who ought to know better."
She did not answer, and he continued:
"You know that you are trusted. Pray accept my apologies."
She was herself again. "Monsieur," she said quietly; "I know nothing of his past. I want to know nothing. It does not seem to me that it is my business. The world is free for a man to come and go in, if he keeps the law and does no ill—is it not? But, in any case, I know nothing. Since you have said so much, I shall say this, and betray no 'secrets of his breast'—that he has received no letter through this office since the day he first came from Vadrome Mountain."
The Seigneur smiled. "A wonderful tailor! How does he carry on business without writing letters?"
"There was a large stock of everything left by Louis Trudel, and not long ago a commercial traveller was here with everything."