He was sure that by one word she would either condemn or save her lover.

“What! condemn Noel?  Ah, well! yes.”

The idea that Noel was the assassin harassed and tormented him, and buzzed in his brain, like the moth which flies again and again against the window where it sees a light.

As they passed the Chaussee d’Antin, the brougham was scarcely thirty paces in advance.  The cab driver turned, and said:  “But the Brougham is stopping.”

“Then stop also.  Don’t lose sight of it; but be ready to follow it again as soon as it goes off.”

Old Tabaret leaned as far as he could out of the cab.

The young woman alighted, crossed the pavement, and entered a shop where cashmeres and laces were sold.

“There,” thought the old fellow, “is where the thousand franc notes go!  Half a million in four years!  What can these creatures do with the money so lavishly bestowed upon them?  Do they eat it?  On the altar of what caprices do they squander these fortunes?  They must have the devil’s own potions which they give to drink to the idiots who ruin themselves for them.  They must possess some peculiar art of preparing and spicing pleasure; since, once they get hold of a man, he sacrifices everything before forsaking them.”

The cab moved on once more, but soon stopped again.

The brougham had made a fresh pause, this time in front of a curiosity shop.

“The woman wants then to buy out half of Paris!” said old Tabaret to himself in a passion.  “Yes, if Noel committed the crime, it was she who forced him to it.  These are my fifteen thousand francs that she is frittering away now.  How long will they last her?  It must have been for money, then, that Noel murdered Widow Lerouge.  If so, he is the lowest, the most infamous of men!  What a monster of dissimulation and hypocrisy!  And to think that he would be my heir, if I should die here of rage!  For it is written in my will in so many words, ’I bequeath to my son, Noel Gerdy!’ If he is guilty, there isn’t a punishment sufficiently severe for him.  But is this woman never going home?”

The woman was in no hurry.  The weather was charming, her dress irresistible, and she intended showing herself off.  She visited three or four more shops, and at last stopped at a confectioner’s, where she remained for more than a quarter of an hour.

The old fellow, devoured by anxiety, moved about and stamped in his cab.  It was torture thus to be kept from the key to a terrible enigma by the caprice of a worthless hussy!  He was dying to rush after her, to seize her by the arm, and cry out to her:  “Home, wretched, creature, home at once!  What are you doing here?  Don’t you know that at this moment your lover, he whom you have ruined, is suspected of an assassination?  Home, then, that I may question you, that I may learn from you whether he is innocent or guilty.  For you will tell me, without knowing it.  Ah!  I have prepared a fine trap for you!  Go home, then, this anxiety is killing me!”