“You will not go out to-day, will you?” asked Jules.
“No, I feel too weak to leave my bed.”
“If you should change your mind, wait till I return,” said Jules.
Then he went down to the porter’s lodge.
“Fouguereau, you will watch the door yourself to-day. I wish to know exactly who comes to the house, and who leaves it.”
Then he threw himself into a hackney-coach, and was driven to the hotel de Maulincour, where he asked for the baron.
“Monsieur is ill,” they told him.
Jules insisted on entering, and gave his name. If he could not see the baron, he wished to see the vidame or the dowager. He waited some time in the salon, where Madame de Maulincour finally came to him and told him that her grandson was much too ill to receive him.
“I know, madame, the nature of his illness from the letter you did me the honor to write, and I beg you to believe—”
“A letter to you, monsieur, written by me!” cried the dowager, interrupting him. “I have written you no letter. What was I made to say in that letter, monsieur?”