“It was an impossibility; for the last week M. de Villefort has secluded himself. It is natural enough; this strange chain of domestic afflictions, followed by the no less strange death of his daughter—”
“Strange? What do you mean, Beauchamp?”
“Oh, yes; do you pretend that all this has been unobserved at the minister’s?” said Beauchamp, placing his eyeglass in his eye, where he tried to make it remain.
“My dear sir,” said Château-Renaud, “allow me to tell you that you do not understand that manoeuvre with the eyeglass half so well as Debray. Give him a lesson, Debray.”
“Stay,” said Beauchamp, “surely I am not deceived.”
“What is it?”
“It is she!”
“Whom do you mean?”
“They said she had left.”
“Mademoiselle Eugénie?” said Château-Renaud; “has she returned?”
“No, but her mother.”
“Madame Danglars? Nonsense! Impossible!” said Château-Renaud; “only ten days after the flight of her daughter, and three days from the bankruptcy of her husband?”
Debray colored slightly, and followed with his eyes the direction of Beauchamp’s glance.
“Come,” he said, “it is only a veiled lady, some foreign princess, perhaps the mother of Cavalcanti. But you were just speaking on a very