The Marquise was ignorant of all these defections.  Licquet had created such an artificial atmosphere around her that she lived under the delusion that she was as important as before.  Convinced that nobody was her equal in finesse and authority, she considered the detective sufficiently clever to deal with a person of humble position, but believed that as soon as she cared to trouble herself to bring it about, he would become entirely devoted to her.  And Licquet, with his almost genial skilfulness, so easily fathomed the Marquise’s proud soul—­was such a perfect actor in the way he stood before her, spoke to her, and looked at her with an air of submissive admiration,—­that it was no wonder she thought he was ready to serve her; and as she was not the sort of woman to use any discretion with a man of his class, she immediately despatched the turnkey to offer him the sum of 12,000 francs, half down, if he would consent to promote her interests.  Licquet appeared very grateful, very much honoured, accepted the money, which he put in the coffers of the prefecture, and the very same day read a letter in which Mme. de Combray informed her accomplices of the great news:  “We have the little secretary under our thumb.”

Ah! what great talks Licquet and the prisoner had, now they had become friends.  From the very first conversation he satisfied himself that she did not know Mme. Acquet’s hiding-place; but the lawyer Lefebre, who had at last ceased to be dumb, had not concealed the fact that it might be learned through a laundress at Falaise named Mme. Chauvel, and Licquet immediately informed Mme. de Combray of this fact and represented to her, in a friendly manner, the danger in which her daughter’s arrest would involve her, and insinuated that the only hope of security lay in the escape to England of Mme. Acquet, “on whose head the government had set a price.”

The idea pleased the Marquise; but who would undertake to discover the fugitive and arrange for her embarcation?  Whom dared she trust, in her desperate situation?  Licquet seemed the very one; he, however, excused himself, saying that a faithful man, carrying a letter from Mme. de Combray, would do as well, and the Marquise never doubted that her daughter would blindly follow her advice—­supported by a sufficient sum of money to live abroad while awaiting better days.  It remained to find the faithful man.  The Marquise only knew of one, who, quite recently, at her request, had consented to go and look for the yellow horse, which he had killed and skinned, and who, she said, had acquitted himself so cleverly of his mission.  She was never tired of praising this worthy fellow, who only existed, as every one knew, in her own imagination; she admitted that she did not know him personally, but had corresponded with him through the medium of the woman Delaitre, who had been placed near her; but she knew that he was the woman’s husband, captain of a boat at Saint Valery-en-Caux, and, in addition, a relation of poor Raoul Gaillard, whom the Marquise remembered even in her own troubles.