“One can never know too much.  I congratulate you.  I have come to see Madame de Bellegarde and her son,” Newman added.  “Are they at home?  If they are not, I will wait.”

“My lady is always at home,” Mrs. Bread replied, “and the marquis is mostly with her.”

“Please then tell them—­one or the other, or both—­that I am here and that I desire to see them.”

Mrs. Bread hesitated.  “May I take a great liberty, sir?”

“You have never taken a liberty but you have justified it,” said Newman, with diplomatic urbanity.

Mrs. Bread dropped her wrinkled eyelids as if she were curtseying; but the curtsey stopped there; the occasion was too grave.  “You have come to plead with them again, sir?  Perhaps you don’t know this—­that Madame de Cintre returned this morning to Paris.”

“Ah, she’s gone!” And Newman, groaning, smote the pavement with his stick.

“She has gone straight to the convent—­the Carmelites they call it.  I see you know, sir.  My lady and the marquis take it very ill.  It was only last night she told them.”

“Ah, she had kept it back, then?” cried Newman.  “Good, good!  And they are very fierce?”

“They are not pleased,” said Mrs. Bread.  “But they may well dislike it.  They tell me it’s most dreadful, sir; of all the nuns in Christendom the Carmelites are the worst.  You may say they are really not human, sir; they make you give up everything—­forever.  And to think of her there!  If I was one that cried, sir, I could cry.”

Newman looked at her an instant.  “We mustn’t cry, Mrs. Bread; we must act.  Go and call them!” And he made a movement to enter farther.

But Mrs. Bread gently checked him.  “May I take another liberty?  I am told you were with my dearest Mr. Valentin, in his last hours.  If you would tell me a word about him!  The poor count was my own boy, sir; for the first year of his life he was hardly out of my arms; I taught him to speak.  And the count spoke so well, sir!  He always spoke well to his poor old Bread.  When he grew up and took his pleasure he always had a kind word for me.  And to die in that wild way!  They have a story that he fought with a wine-merchant.  I can’t believe that, sir!  And was he in great pain?”

“You are a wise, kind old woman, Mrs. Bread,” said Newman.  “I hoped I might see you with my own children in your arms.  Perhaps I shall, yet.”  And he put out his hand.  Mrs. Bread looked for a moment at his open palm, and then, as if fascinated by the novelty of the gesture, extended her own ladylike fingers.  Newman held her hand firmly and deliberately, fixing his eyes upon her.  “You want to know all about Mr. Valentin?” he said.

“It would be a sad pleasure, sir.”

“I can tell you everything.  Can you sometimes leave this place?”

“The chateau, sir?  I really don’t know.  I never tried.”

“Try, then; try hard.  Try this evening, at dusk.  Come to me in the old ruin there on the hill, in the court before the church.  I will wait for you there; I have something very important to tell you.  An old woman like you can do as she pleases.”