“I can’t tell you, sir,” answered Mrs. Bread.  “I couldn’t read it; it was in French.”

“But could no one else read it?”

“I never asked a human creature.”

“No one has ever seen it?”

“If you see it you’ll be the first.”

Newman seized the old woman’s hand in both his own and pressed it vigorously.  “I thank you ever so much for that,” he cried.  “I want to be the first, I want it to be my property and no one else’s!  You’re the wisest old woman in Europe.  And what did you do with the paper?” This information had made him feel extraordinarily strong.  “Give it to me quick!”

Mrs. Bread got up with a certain majesty.  “It is not so easy as that, sir.  If you want the paper, you must wait.”

“But waiting is horrible, you know,” urged Newman.

“I am sure I have waited; I have waited these many years,” said Mrs. Bread.

“That is very true.  You have waited for me.  I won’t forget it.  And yet, how comes it you didn’t do as M. de Bellegarde said, show the paper to some one?”

“To whom should I show it?” answered Mrs. Bread, mournfully.  “It was not easy to know, and many’s the night I have lain awake thinking of it.  Six months afterwards, when they married Mademoiselle to her vicious old husband, I was very near bringing it out.  I thought it was my duty to do something with it, and yet I was mightily afraid.  I didn’t know what was written on the paper or how bad it might be, and there was no one I could trust enough to ask.  And it seemed to me a cruel kindness to do that sweet young creature, letting her know that her father had written her mother down so shamefully; for that’s what he did, I suppose.  I thought she would rather be unhappy with her husband than be unhappy that way.  It was for her and for my dear Mr. Valentin I kept quiet.  Quiet I call it, but for me it was a weary quietness.  It worried me terribly, and it changed me altogether.  But for others I held my tongue, and no one, to this hour, knows what passed between the poor marquis and me.”

“But evidently there were suspicions,” said Newman.  “Where did Mr. Valentin get his ideas?”

“It was the little doctor from Poitiers.  He was very ill-satisfied, and he made a great talk.  He was a sharp Frenchman, and coming to the house, as he did day after day, I suppose he saw more than he seemed to see.  And indeed the way the poor marquis went off as soon as his eyes fell on my lady was a most shocking sight for anyone.  The medical gentleman from Paris was much more accommodating, and he hushed up the other.  But for all he could do Mr. Valentin and Mademoiselle heard something; they knew their father’s death was somehow against nature.  Of course they couldn’t accuse their mother, and, as I tell you, I was as dumb as that stone.  Mr. Valentin used to look at me sometimes, and his eyes seemed to shine, as if he were thinking of asking me something.  I was dreadfully afraid