“Now, my good friends, what is the use of all this talking, when you know in your hearts that, if I suspected my wife of knowing more than I chose of my affairs, she would not outlive the day? Remember Victorine. Because she merely joked about my affairs in an imprudent manner, and rejected my advice to keep a prudent tongue—to see what she liked, but ask nothing and say nothing—she has gone a long journey—longer than to Paris.” “But this one is different to her; we knew all that Madame Victorine knew, she was such a chatterbox; but this one may find out a vast deal, and never breathe a word about it, she is so sly. Some fine day we may have the country raised, and the gendarmes down upon us from Strasburg, and all owing to your pretty doll, with her cunning ways of coming over you.” I think this roused M. de la Tourelle a little from his contemptuous indifference, for he ground an oath through his teeth, and said, “Feel! this dagger is sharp, Henri. If my wife breathes a word, and I am such a fool as not to have stopped her mouth effectually before she can bring down gendarmes upon us, just let that good steel find its way to my heart. Let her guess but one tittle, let her have but one slight suspicion that I am not a ‘grand propriétaire,’ much less imagine that I am a chief of Chauffeurs, and she follows Victorine on the long journey beyond Paris that very day.” “She’ll outwit you yet; or I never judged women well. Those still silent ones are the devil. She’ll be off during some of your absences, having picked out some secret that will break us all on the wheel.” “Bah!” said his voice; and then in a minute he added, “Let her go if she will. But, where she goes, I will follow; so don’t cry before you’re hurt.”