Always smiling, the good man, with a gesture like that of a prelate blessing his people, endeavored to reassure her, to calm her. But he could do nothing with her. She would not be appeased. In the long run this was perhaps as well, for she unconsciously, without any intention of aiding justice, put some clews into Bernardet's hands which finally aided him in tracing the man.
Mme. Colard still rebelled. Did they think she was a spy, an informer? She had never—no, never—played such a part. She did not know the young man. She had bought the picture as she bought any number of things.
"And what if they should cut off his head because he had confidence in entering my shop—I should never forgive myself, never!"
"It is not going to bring Charles Breton to the scaffold. Not at all, not at all. It is only to find out who he is, and of whom he obtained this portrait. Once more—did nothing in his face strike you?"
"Nothing!" Mme. Colard responded.
She reflected a moment.
"Ah! yes; perhaps. The shape of his hat. A felt hat with wide brim, something like those worn in South America or Kareros. You know, the kind they call sombrero. The only thing I said to myself was, 'This is probably some returned traveler,' and if I had not seen at the bottom of the picture, Bordeaux, I should have thought that this might be the portrait of some Spaniard, some Peruvian."
Bernardet looked straight into Mme. Colard's spectacles and listened intently, and he suddenly remembered what Moniche had said of the odd appearance of the man who had, like the woman in black, called on M. Rovère.
"Some accomplice!" thought Bernardet.
He again asked Mme. Colard the price of the picture.