interesting agitation, she produced the very key from her breast, with a
string tied to it. My father was little moved by this piteous tempest. He
coolly took the key and tried it in the desk, which it locked and unlocked
quite freely, though the wards were complicated. He shook his head and
looked her in the face.

'Pray, who made this key? It is a new one, and made expressly to pick this
lock.'

But Madame was not going to tell any more than she had expressly bargained
for; so she only fell once more into her old paroxysm of sorrow,
self-reproach, extenuation, and entreaty.

'Well,' said my father,' I promised that on surrendering the key you should
go. It is enough. I keep my word. You shall have an hour and a half to
prepare in. You must then be ready to depart. I will send your money to you
by Mrs. Rusk; and if you look for another situation, you had better not
refer to me. Now be so good as to leave me.'

Madame seemed to be in a strange perplexity. She bridled up, dried her eyes
fiercely, and dropped a great courtesy, and then sailed away towards the
door. Before reaching it she stopped on the way, turning half round, with
a peaked, pallid glance at my father, and she bit her lip viciously as she
eyed him. At the door the same repulsive pantomime was repeated, as she
stood for a moment with her hand upon the handle. But she changed her
bearing again with a sniff, and with a look of scorn, almost heightened to
a sneer, she made another very low courtesy and a disdainful toss of her
head, and so disappeared, shutting the door rather sharply behind her.