“Your husband? Excuse me, I have followed him like his own shadow. But I’m afraid the news I have of him won’t interest you very much. Since the duke left for Paris, your husband has charge of everything. Ah! you wouldn’t recognize him! He’s always busy now. He’s up at cock-crow; and goes to bed with the chickens. He writes letters all the morning. In the afternoon he receives every one who calls upon him. The retired officers are hand and glove with him. He has re-instated five or six of them, and has granted pensions to two others. He seldom goes out, and never in the evening.” He paused, and for a moment Blanche remained silent. A question rose to her lips, and yet she scarcely dared to propound it. She blushed with shame, and it was only after a supreme effort that she managed to articulate, “But he must surely have a mistress?” Chupin burst into a noisy laugh. “Well, we have come to it at last,” he said, with an air of audacious familiarity that made Blanche positively shudder. “You mean that scoundrel Lacheneur’s daughter, don’t you? that stuck-up minx Marie-Anne?” Blanche felt that denial was useless. “Yes,” she answered; “I do mean Marie-Anne.” “Ah, well! she’s neither been seen nor heard of. She must have fled with her other lover, Maurice d’Escorval.” “You are mistaken.” “Oh, not at all! Of all the Lacheneurs, the only one remaining about here is Jean the son, who leads a vagabond life, poaching much as I do. He’s always in the woods, day and night, with his gun slung over his shoulder. I caught sight of him once. He’s quite frightful to look at, a perfect skeleton, with eyes that glitter like live coals. If he ever meets me and sees me, my account will be settled then and there.” Blanche turned pale. Plainly enough it was Jean Lacheneur who had fired at her father. However, concealing her agitation, she replied, “I, myself, feel sure that Marie-Anne is in the neighbourhood, concealed at Montaignac, probably. I must know. Try and find out where she is by Monday, when I will meet you here again.” “All right, I’ll try,” answered Chupin, and he did indeed try; exerting all his energy and cunning, but in vain. He was fettered by the precautions which he took to shield himself against Balstain and Jean Lacheneur; while, on the other hand, he had to prosecute his search personally, as no one in the neighbourhood would have consented to give him the least information. “Still no news!” he said to Blanche at each succeeding interview. But she would not admit the possibility of Marie-Anne having fled with Maurice. Jealousy will not yield even to evidence. She had declared that Marie-Anne had taken her husband from her, that Martial and Marie-Anne loved each other, and it must be so, all proofs to the contrary notwithstanding. At last, one morning, she found her spy jubilant. “Good news!” he cried, as soon as he perceived her; “we have caught the minx at last.” XXX.