the hut, at the gate of the Seigneur's manor.

On this topic M. Dauphin was not voluble. His original kindness to the
woman had given him many troubled hours at home, for Madame Dauphin had
construed his human sympathy into the dark and carnal desires of the
heart, and his truthful eloquence had made his case the worse. A
miserable sentimentalist, the Notary was likely to be misunderstood for
ever, and one or two indiscretions of his extreme youth had been a weapon
against him through the long years of a blameless married life.

He heaved a sigh of sympathy with the Cure now. "She has not come back
yet?" he said to the Seigneur. "No sign of her. She locked up and
stepped out, so my housekeeper says, about the time--"

"The day of old Margot's funeral," interposed the Notary. "She'd had a
letter that day, a letter she'd been waiting for, and abroad she went--
alas! the flyaway--from bad to worse, I fear--ah me!"

The Seigneur turned sharply on him. "Who told you she had a letter that
day, for which she had been waiting?" he said.

"Monsieur Evanturel."

The Seigneur's face became sterner still. "What business had he to know
that she received a letter that day?"

"He is postmaster," innocently replied the Notary. "He is the devil!"
said the Seigneur tartly. "I beg your pardon, Cure; but it is
Evanturel's business not to know what letters go to and fro in that
office. He should be blind and dumb, so far as we all are concerned."