"Is he dead?"
Julia remained silent. The marquis rose abruptly, exclaiming,—
"Well, then, cruel woman, have you amused yourself sufficiently with my torture? When are you going to make an end of this?"
"You are both very impatient," said the young Italian, smiling bitterly; "but there is little more to tell you. Old Touquet asked my father whether he had, in his travels, heard his son spoken of. My father could tell him nothing satisfactory. Soon after we went to dwell in a village near Amiens; it was there that I lived up to the age of fifteen years. Then my father died; and I came to Paris, where I went into a shop as a simple workwoman. My father had left me no property except a manuscript containing the most curious adventures of his life, and the secret history of the persons who had consulted him. This is how I learned, monsieur le marquis, of the abduction of poor Estrelle, and it was in examining these notes of my father that I saw in what manner the barber Touquet had acted toward his parents."
"Is that all that you know?" said the marquis. "Have you learned nothing more in regard to Estrelle and her child?"
"A short time ago I did not know anything further, seigneur, but chance has put me in possession of all that you would know, thanks to a visit which I paid to the barber, for it was at his house that I found the clew to the mystery."
"At my house?" said Touquet, looking at Julia in surprise.
"Yes, at your house, in the closet hidden at the back of the alcove in Marguerite's chamber."
Pale and trembling, the barber muttered,—
"You have been in that closet—but there was nothing there; no, I am very certain of it."