The Curé looked at his servant with amazement.
—What do you mean by that, Veronica? he asked in a stern voice.
—Oh! nothing, I mean nothing. I mean that you can have entire confidence in your poor servant.
—I thank you, Veronica, but I don't know what you mean.
—I explain myself badly doubtless, Monsieur le Curé. Ah! pardon me, I was forgetting … here, there is a letter which I have just found and which has been slipped under the door at night.
He looked at the address. It was an elegant and bold hand, the hand of a woman.
XXIII.
THE LETTER
"The beauty then, to end this war,
Offers but a single way which we can hardly guess."
R. IMBERT (Nouvelles).