“What became of the letter?” asked Sallenauve.

“It is there in my room, where the Englishman gave it me secretly.  It is addressed to monsieur.”

“Fetch it at once, my dear man,” cried Sallenauve.

After reading the letter, his face seemed to Philippe convulsed.

“Tell them not to unharness,” he said; and he read the letter through a second time.

When the old servant returned after executing the order, Sallenauve asked him at what hour they had started.

“About nine,” answered Philippe.

“Three hours in advance!” muttered the deputy, looking at his watch, and returning to the carriage which had brought him.  As he was getting into it, the old majordomo forced himself to say,—­

“Monsieur found no bad news in that letter, did he?”

“No; but your master may be absent for some time; keep the house in good order.”  Then he said to the coachman, “Paris!”

The next day, quite early in the morning, Monsieur de l’Estorade was in his study, employed in a rather singular manner.  It will be remembered that on the day when Sallenauve, then Dorlange the sculptor, had sent him the bust of Madame de l’Estorade, he had not found a place where, as he thought, the little masterpiece had a proper light.  From the moment that Rastignac hinted to him that his intercourse with the sculptor, now deputy, might injure him at court, he had agreed with his son Armand that the artist had given to Madame de l’Estorade the air of a grisette; but now that Sallenauve, by his resistance to ministerial blandishments, had taken an openly hostile attitude to the government, that bust seemed to the peer of France no longer worthy of exhibition, and the worthy man was now engaged in finding some dark corner where, without recourse to the absurdity of actually hiding it, it would be out of range to the eyes of visitors, whose questions as to its maker he should no longer be forced to answer.  He was therefore perched on the highest step of his library ladder, holding in his hands the gift of the sculptor, and preparing to relegate it to the top of a bookcase, where it was destined to keep company with an owl and a cormorant shot by Armand during the recent holidays and stuffed by paternal pride, when the door of the study opened and Lucas announced,—­

“Monsieur Philippe.”

The age of the old majordomo and the confidential post he occupied in Marie-Gaston’s establishment seemed to the factotum of the house of l’Estorade to authorize the designation of “monsieur,”—­a civility expectant of return, be it understood.

Descending from his eminence, the peer of France asked Philippe what brought him, and whether anything had happened at Ville d’Avray.  The old servant related the singular departure of his master, and the no less singular departure of Sallenauve without a word of explanation; then he added,—­

“This morning, while putting monsieur’s room in order, a letter addressed to Madame le comtesse fell out of a book.  As the letter was sealed and all ready to be sent, I supposed that monsieur, in the hurry of departure, had forgotten to tell me to put it in the post.  I thought therefore I had better bring it here myself.  Perhaps Madame la comtesse will find in it some explanation of this sudden journey, about which I have dreamed all night.”