“If I were you, madame, I should go to Monsieur Guillaumin.”

“Do you think⁠—”

And this question meant to say⁠—

“You who know the house through the servant, has the master spoken sometimes of me?”

“Yes, you’d do well to go there.”

She dressed, put on her black gown, and her hood with jet beads, and that she might not be seen (there was still a crowd on the Place), she took the path by the river, outside the village.

She reached the notary’s gate quite breathless. The sky was sombre, and a little snow was falling. At the sound of the bell, Theodore in a red waistcoat appeared on the steps; he came to open the door almost familiarly, as to an acquaintance, and showed her into the dining-room.