“I should think I did know them! It was the sixth time they were employing me.”
Isidore gave a start:
“The sixth time, you say? And since when?”
“Why every day before that one, to be sure! But it was other things then—great blocks of stone—or else smaller, longish ones, wrapped up in newspapers, which they carried as if they were worth I don’t know what. Oh, I mustn’t touch those on any account!—But what’s the matter? You’ve turned quite white.”
“Nothing—the heat of the room—”
Beautrelet staggered out into the air. The joy, the surprise of the discovery made him feel giddy. He went back very quietly to Varengeville, slept in the village, spent an hour at the mayor’s offices with the school-master and returned to the château. There he found a letter awaiting him “care of M. le Comte de Gesvres.” It consisted of a single line:
“Second warning. Hold your tongue. If not—”
“Come,” he muttered. “I shall have to make up my mind and take a few precautions for my personal safety. If not, as they say—”
It was nine o’clock. He strolled about among the ruins and then lay down near the cloisters and closed his eyes.
“Well, young man, are you satisfied with the results of your campaign?”