He plunged past Simpson and was gone down the darkling alley.
"You are late, m'sieu'," remarked Madame Picard as he came into the kitchen and sat down in a chair near the cripple. Her manner was less rough than usual.
"I've been at Michaud's," he answered.
"Ah? But you were there this morning."
"He asked me to come this evening, when his friends came, madame.
There were several there."
"They are often there," she answered. There was nothing significant in her tone, but Simpson had an uneasy feeling that she had known all the time of his visit to the carpenter.
"I met Father Antoine on the way home," he said.
"A bad man!" She flamed into sudden violence. "A bad man!"
"I had thought so." Her loquacity this evening was amazing. Simpson thought he saw an opening to her confidence and plunged in. "And he is a priest. It is bad, that. Here are sheep without a shepherd."
"Quoi?"