"A logician, too," he said with a pleased smile; "the air here agrees with you." So saying he left her, and the moment he was beyond the reach of her personal influence his native manner asserted itself, and his features assumed their usual grave expression. As he was descending the stairs of the hotel he was accosted by a woman, the maid he had advised his wife to keep.
"I beg your pardon, sir," she said; "but may I ask why I am discharged?"
"Certainly not of me," he replied stiffly; "you are my wife's servant. She has her reasons."
"She has not made me acquainted with them," said the woman discontentedly. "Will you?"
He saw that she was in an ill-temper, and although he was not a man to tolerate insolence, he was attentive to trifles.
"I do not interfere with my wife's domestics. She engages whom she pleases, and discharges whom she pleases."
"But to do right, sir, that is everyone's affair. I am discharged suddenly, without notice, and without having committed a fault. Until this morning I am perfection; no one can dress my lady like me, no one can arrange her hair so admirably. That is what she says to me continually. Why, then, am I discharged? I ask my lady why, and she says, for her convenience."
"Oh yes, and has given me money to return home. But it is not that. It is that it hurts me to be suddenly discharged. It is to my injury when I seek another situation. I shall be asked why I left my last. To speak the truth, I must say that I did not leave, that I was discharged. I shall be asked why, and I shall not be able to say."
"Yes; it is not that I complain of; it is being suddenly discharged."
"I cannot interfere, mistress. You have no reasonable cause for complaint. You have a character, and you are well paid; that should content you."
He turned from her, and she sent her parting words after him:
"My lady has her reasons! I hope they will be found to be good ones, and that you will find them so. Do you hear?--that you will find them so!"
He paid no further heed to her, and entering his carriage drove to the Rue de la Corraterie, to the business house of Jacob Hartrich, and was at once admitted to the banker's private room.
JACOB HARTRICH, THE BANKER, GIVES HIS REASONS FOR BELIEVING GAUTRAN THE WOODMAN GUILTY OF THE MURDER OF MADELINE