Madame Bonacieux kissed the hands of the queen, concealed the paper in the bosom of her dress, and disappeared with the lightness of a bird.
Ten minutes afterward she was at home. As she told the queen, she had not seen her husband since his liberation; she was ignorant of the change that had taken place in him with respect to the cardinal—a change which had since been strengthened by two or three visits from the Comte de Rochefort, who had become the best friend of Bonacieux, and had persuaded him, without much trouble, that no culpable sentiments had prompted the abduction of his wife, but that it was only a political precaution.
She found M. Bonacieux alone; the poor man was recovering with difficulty the order in his house, in which he had found most of the furniture broken and the closets nearly emptied—justice not being one of the three things which King Solomon names as leaving no traces of their passage. As to the servant, she had run away at the moment of her