"
"That is precisely what I did, madame. I saw the schoolmaster, and I
spoke to the other persons who had employed the lad. They all told me
that he was a good-for-nothing. The schoolmaster remembered that he had
been a liar and a bully. Now he's a thief; that makes him perfect. I
can't say otherwise than I have said, since you wanted to know the plain
truth."
La Couteau thus emphasized her statements on seeing that the lady's
suffering increased. And what strange suffering it was; a heart-pang at
each fresh accusation, as if her husband's illegitimate child had become
in some degree her own! She ended indeed by silencing the nurse-agent.
"Thank you. The boy is no longer at Rougemont, that is all we wished to
know."
La Couteau thereupon turned to Mathieu, continuing her narrative, in
order to give him his money's worth.
"I also made the other apprentice talk a bit," said she; "you know, that
big carroty fellow, Richard, whom I spoke to you about. He's another whom
I wouldn't willingly trust. But it's certain that he doesn't know where
his companion has gone. The gendarmes think that Alexandre is in Paris."
Thereupon Mathieu in his turn thanked the woman, and handed her a
bank-note for fifty francs--a gift which brought a smile to her face and
rendered her obsequious, and, as she herself put it, "as discreetly
silent as the grave.
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