"Well, then, that woman was in collusion with her husband."
"Oh!——"
"Yes, sir, and so it is in two cases out of every ten. Oh! we know it well."
"What proof have you of such a conspiracy?"
"In the first place, the husband!" said the other, with the calm acumen of a surgeon practised in unbinding wounds. "Mean speculation is stamped in every line of that villainous face. But you, no doubt, set great store by a certain letter written by that woman with regard to the child?"
"So much so, that I always have it about me," replied Hulot, feeling in his breast-pocket for the little pocketbook which he always kept there.
"Leave your pocketbook where it is," said the man, as crushing as a thunder-clap. "Here is the letter.—I now know all I want to know. Madame Marneffe, of course, was aware of what that pocketbook contained?"
"She alone in the world."
"So I supposed.—Now for the proof you asked for of her collusion with her husband."
"Let us hear!" said the Baron, still incredulous.