"When?" I asked suspiciously.
"Yesterday," he answered. "She is an old cat!" he continued, with a grimace. "I hate her! But my wife is jealous, and would think all things."
"And did you throw it into a coach," I said, "on the Pont du Change to-day?"
"God forbid!" he replied, shrinking into himself again. "I wrote it for her, and she took it away. She said it was a jest that she was playing. That is all I know."
I saw that he spoke the truth, and after a few more words I dismissed him, bidding him keep silence, and remain at home in case I needed him. At the last, he plucked up spirit to ask who I was; but preferring to keep that discovery for a day to come, when I might appear as the benefactor of this little family, I told him only that I was one of the King's servants, and so left him.
It will be believed that I found the information I had received little to my mind. The longer I dwelt on it, the more serious seemed the matter. While I could not imagine circumstances in which a woman would be likely to inform against her husband without cause, I could recall more than one conspiracy which had been frustrated by informers of that class—sometimes out of regard for the persons against whom they informed. Viewed in this light, the warning seemed to my mind sufficiently alarming; but when I came also to consider the secrecy with which Madame Nicholas had both prepared it and conveyed it to me, the aspect of the case grew yet more formidable. In the result, I had not passed through two streets before my mind was made up to lay the case before the King, and be guided by the sagacity which was never wanting to my gracious master.
An unexpected meeting which awaited me on my return to the Arsenal confirmed me in this resolution and enabled me to carry it into effect. We entered without difficulty, and duly found Maignan on guard at the door of my apartments. But a glance at his face sufficed to show that something was wrong; nor did it need the look of penitence which he assumed on seeing us—a look so piteous that at another time it must have diverted me—to convince me that he had infringed my orders.
"How now, sirrah?" I said, without waiting for him to speak. "What have you been doing?"
"They would take no refusal, my lord," he answered plaintively, waving his hand towards the door.
"What!" I cried sternly; for this was an instance of such direct disobedience as I could scarce understand. "Did I not give you the strictest orders to deny me to everybody?"