Presently he relinquished the mantle border, and began, with delicate approach, to touch the wrist lets, stroking the dark fur softly, and pushing his finger-tips into it; and at length, when her attention, fluttering abstractedly toward him now and then, had become fixed on him, and she held herself still, and looked, with a half-surprised smile of pleasure, to see what sweet and childish thing he was doing, he took her two plump and well-gloved hands in his, and looked up at his wife. "There's no danger of her telling anything but the truth, Annette," he said. "She is too good and honest for anything else." And he actually bent his handsome head, and kissed Mrs. Ferrier's hands, first one then the other!
There was a momentary silence. Annette, startled by this unexpected delight, could only look at her husband with tearful, shining eyes.
"I tell you, Annette, she doesn't make half as many mistakes as—as I do, for instance."
He dropped his face, relinquished the hands he had kissed, and began again to play with the border of Mrs. Ferrier's cloak, leaving the two women to their talk.
But we have left F. Chevreuse and Mr. Macon.
"That hateful shawl, who raked that out?" the priest asked after a while, questioning in spite of himself.
"The whole turns upon that," Mr. Macon said, rousing himself from the brown-study into which he had fallen. "It seems that Miss Carthusen went up to the convent to make the acquaintance of the Sisters, and, while there, saw a shawl thrown over a lounge in the parlor. She examined it while waiting for the Sisters to come in, and found the corner torn. She mentioned the fact to that Renford, who is an amateur detective. The fellow's great ambition is to become a second Vidocq; he immediately offered to undertake the case, with the provision that, if he should succeed in finding the criminal, he should be regularly employed as a detective."
"Where did the Sisters get the shawl?" demanded F. Chevreuse. "Have they got to be dragged in?"
"It would seem that everybody is to be dragged in," Mr. Macon said. "My wife got the shawl, she doesn't know where, when she was collecting for the convent. That is, they say that she brought it; though she cannot recollect any person giving her such an article, nor recollect even having seen it among the packages. But her carriage was piled full that day, and she had called, perhaps, at twenty houses; so it would not be strange if she should forget."
"So those poor nuns have had to go into court!" said F. Chevreuse, much distressed by the news. "Which one went?"