“But what,” murmured he, “has become of the child?  Has it been destroyed?  No; for the Widow Lerouge, an accomplice in an infanticide, would be no longer formidable.  The child has been preserved, and confided to the care of our widow, by whom it has been reared.  They have been able to take the infant away from her, but not the proofs of its birth and its existence.  Here is the opening.  The father is the man of the fine carriage; the mother is the lady who came with the handsome young man.  Ha! ha!  I can well believe the dear old dame wanted for nothing.  She had a secret worth a farm in Brie.  But the old lady was extravagant; her expenses and her demands have increased year by year.  Poor humanity!  She has leaned upon the staff too heavily, and broken it.  She has threatened.  They have been frightened, and said, ’Let there be an end of this!’ But who has charged himself with the commission?  The papa?  No; he is too old.  By jupiter!  The son,—­the child himself!  He would save his mother, the brave boy!  He has slain the witness and burnt the proofs!”

Manette all this time, her ear to the keyhole, listened with all her soul; from time to time she gleaned a word, an oath, the noise of a blow upon the table; but that was all.

“For certain,” thought she, “his women are running in his head.”

Her curiosity overcame her prudence.  Hearing no more, she ventured to open the door a little way.  The old fellow caught her in the very act.

“Monsieur wants his coffee?” stammered she timidly.

“Yes, you may bring it to me,” he answered.

He attempted to swallow his coffee at a gulp, but scalded himself so severely that the pain brought him suddenly from speculation to reality.

“Thunder!” growled he; “but it is hot!  Devil take the case! it has set me beside myself.  They are right when they say I am too enthusiastic.  But who amongst the whole lot of them could have, by the sole exercise of observation and reason, established the whole history of the assassination?  Certainly not Gevrol, poor man!  Won’t he feel vexed and humiliated, being altogether out of it.  Shall I seek M. Daburon?  No, not yet.  The night is necessary to me to sift to the bottom all the particulars, and arrange my ideas systematically.  But, on the other hand, if I sit here all alone, this confounded case will keep me in a fever of speculation, and as I have just eaten a great deal, I may get an attack of indigestion.  My faith!  I will call upon Madame Gerdy:  she has been ailing for some days past.  I will have a chat with Noel, and that will change the course of my ideas.”

He got up from the table, put on his overcoat, and took his hat and cane.

“Are you going out, sir?” asked Manette.

“Yes.”

“Shall you be late?”

“Possibly.”

“But you will return to-night?”

“I do not know.”

One minute later, M. Tabaret was ringing his friend’s bell.