To this long speech of her husband, which he accompanied with sundry little caresses, Louise replied, in a tone still half sulky, that she was ready to seek the paper, but that she did not see how they could find it, with nothing to guide them in the search. But nevertheless, when they did seriously begin their perquisitions, she displayed all that sagacity in discovering a secret which women instinctively possess. Of course, the first place to which they particularly directed their inquiries was the chamber in which, according to the account of Callot, the meeting of the conspirators had been held. Here they looked in every nook and corner, turned over every heap of rubbish, examined the chairs and the table of old _Père Le Rouge_, and having gone over every inch of the apartment, began anew and went over it all again. At length Louise, seemingly tired of her search in that chamber, left her husband to pursue it as he pleased, and sitting down in one of the settles, began to hum a Languedoc air, beating time with her fingers on the table. "Pardie!" cried the Norman, after having hunted for some time in vain: "it is not here, that is certain!" "Yes, it is!" said Louise, very quietly continuing to beat time on the table; "it is in this very room." "_Nom de Dieu!_ where is it then?" cried Monsieur Marteville. "It is here, in the inside of this hollow piece of wood," answered Louise, tapping the table with her knuckles, which produced that sort of empty echoing sound that evinced it was not so solid as it appeared.