So saying, he hid his face in his hands and the sobs which he had been too long controlling burst forth. Then suddenly recovering himself: “Imprudent! Imprudent that I am! Hide your tears! Stifle your sighs!” ... Then, seizing Amédée by the arm: “We must not stay here, Sir. We are observed. The emotion I am unable to master has been remarked already.” Amédée by this time was following him in a state of stupefaction. “But how,” he at last managed to ask, “how could you guess what I am here for?” “Pray Heaven that no one else has been permitted to suspect it! But how could your anxious face, your sorrowful looks, as you examined this spot, escape the notice of one who has haunted it day and night for the last three weeks? Alas! my dear sir, as soon as I saw you, some presentiment, some warning from on high, told me that a sister soul.... Hush! Someone is coming. For Heaven’s sake, pretend complete unconcern.” A man carrying vegetables was coming along the quay from the opposite direction. Immediately, without changing his tone of voice, but speaking in a slightly more animated manner, and as if he were continuing a sentence: “And that is why Virginia cigars, which some smokers appreciate so highly, can be lighted only at the flame of a candle, after you have removed the thin straw, that goes through the middle of them, and whose object is to keep open a little channel in which the smoke can circulate freely. A Virginia that doesn’t draw well is fit for nothing but to be thrown away. I have seen smokers who are particular as to what they smoke, throw away as many as six, my dear sir, before finding one that suits them....” And as soon as the man had passed them: “Did you see how he looked at us? It was essential to put him off the scent.” “What!” cried Fleurissoire, flabbergasted, “is it possible that a common market gardener can be one of the persons of whom we must beware?” “I cannot certify that it is so, sir, but I imagine it. The neighbourhood of this castle is watched with particular care; agents of a special police are continually patrolling it. In order not to arouse suspicion, they assume the most varied disguises. The people we have to deal with are so clever--so clever! And we so credulous, so naturally confiding! But if I were to tell you, sir, that I was within an ace of ruining everything simply because I gave my modest luggage to an ordinary-looking facchino to carry from the station to the lodging where I am staying! He spoke French, and though I have spoken Italian fluently ever since I was a child ... you yourself, I am persuaded, would have felt the same emotion.... I couldn’t help giving way to it when I heard someone speaking my mother tongue in a foreign land.... Well! This facchino....” “Was he one of them?” “He was one of them. I was able to make practically sure of it. Fortunately I had said very little.”