Rougierre. It is time you were relieved. This occurrence decides it.'

He rang the bell.

'Tell Madame de la Rougierre that I request the honour of seeing her for a
few minutes here.'

My father's communications to her were always equally ceremonious. In a
few minutes there was a knock at the door, and the same figure, smiling,
courtesying, that had scared me on the threshold last night, like the
spirit of evil, presented itself.

My father rose, and Madame having at his request taken a chair opposite,
looking, as usual in his presence, all amiability, he proceeded at once to
the point.

'Madame de la Rougierre, I have to request you that you will give me the
key now in your possession, which unlocks this desk of mine.'

With which termination he tapped his gold pencil-case suddenly on it.

Madame, who had expected something very different, became instantly so
pale, with a dull purplish hue upon her forehead, that, especially when she
had twice essayed with her white lips, in vain, to answer, I expected to
see her fall in a fit.

She was not looking in his face; her eyes were fixed lower, and her mouth
and cheek sucked in, with a strange distortion at one side.

She stood up suddenly, and staring straight in his face, she succeeded in