“I think, monsieur,” said the old vidame, “from what I have heard poor Justin say, that Monsieur de Funcal lives at either the Portuguese or the Brazilian embassy.  Monsieur de Funcal is a nobleman belonging to both those countries.  As for the convict, he is dead and buried.  Your persecutor, whoever he is, seems to me so powerful that it would be well to take no decisive measures until you are sure of some way of confounding and crushing him.  Act prudently and with caution, my dear monsieur.  Had Monsieur de Maulincour followed my advice, nothing of all this would have happened.”

Jules coldly but politely withdrew.  He was now at a total loss to know how to reach Ferragus.  As he passed into his own house, the porter told him that Madame had just been out to throw a letter into the post box at the head of the rue de Menars.  Jules felt humiliated by this proof of the insight with which the porter espoused his cause, and the cleverness by which he guessed the way to serve him.  The eagerness of servants, and their shrewdness in compromising masters who compromised themselves, was known to him, and he fully appreciated the danger of having them as accomplices, no matter for what purpose.  But he could not think of his personal dignity until the moment when he found himself thus suddenly degraded.  What a triumph for the slave who could not raise himself to his master, to compel his master to come down to his level!  Jules was harsh and hard to him.  Another fault.  But he suffered so deeply!  His life till then so upright, so pure, was becoming crafty; he was to scheme and lie.  Clemence was scheming and lying.  This to him was a moment of horrible disgust.  Lost in a flood of bitter feelings, Jules stood motionless at the door of his house.  Yielding to despair, he thought of fleeing, of leaving France forever, carrying with him the illusions of uncertainty.  Then, again, not doubting that the letter Clemence had just posted was addressed to Ferragus, his mind searched for a means of obtaining the answer that mysterious being was certain to send.  Then his thoughts began to analyze the singular good fortune of his life since his marriage, and he asked himself whether the calumny for which he had taken such signal vengeance was not a truth.  Finally, reverting to the coming answer, he said to himself:—­

“But this man, so profoundly capable, so logical in his every act, who sees and foresees, who calculates, and even divines, our very thoughts, is he likely to make an answer?  Will he not employ some other means more in keeping with his power?  He may send his answer by some beggar; or in a carton brought by an honest man, who does not suspect what he brings; or in some parcel of shoes, which a shop-girl may innocently deliver to my wife.  If Clemence and he have agreed upon such means—­”

He distrusted all things; his mind ran over vast tracts and shoreless oceans of conjecture.  Then, after floating for a time among a thousand contradictory ideas, he felt he was strongest in his own house, and he resolved to watch it as the ant-lion watches his sandy labyrinth.