to be overtaken by the pedlar, and treated by him to a supper at a cabaret.  No doubt, while he was afterwards asleep, the contents of his packet had been abstracted.  There had been important documents for the Duke besides Eustacie’s letters, and the affair greatly annoyed the Duchess, though she had the compensation of having been proved perfectly right in her prejudice against pedlars, and her dislike of her son’s courier.  She sent for Eustacie to tell her privately of the loss, and of course the young mother at once turned pale and exclaimed, ’The wicked one!  Ah! what a blessing that I gave my little darling none of his dose!’

‘Hein?  You had some from him then!’ demanded the Duchess with displeasure.

’No, Madame, thanks, thanks to you.  Oh!  I never will be self-willed and naughty again.  Forgive me, Madame.’  And down she dropped on her knee, with clasped hands and glistening eyes.

‘Forgive you, silly child, for what?’ said Madame de Quinet, nearly laughing.

’Ah! for the angry, passionate thoughts I had!  Ah!  Madame, I was all but giving the stuff to my little angel in very spite—­and then—–­’ Eutacie’s voice was drowned in passion of tears, and she devoured the old lady’s hand with her kisses.

‘Come, come,’ said the Duchess, ’let us be reasonable.  A man may be a thief, but it does not follow that he is a poisoner.’

‘Nay, that will we see,’ cried Eutacie.  ’He was resolved that the little lamb should not escape, and he left a flask for her with Mademoiselle Perrot.  I will fetch it, if Madame will give me leave.  Oh, the great mercy of Heaven that made her so well that I gave her none!’

Madame de Quinet’s analytic powers did not go very far; and would probably have decided against the syrup if it had been nothing but virgin honey.  She was one who fully believed that her dear Queen Jeanne had been poisoned with a pair of gloves, and she had unlimited faith in the powers of evil possessed by Rene of Milan.  Of course, she detected the presence of a slow poison, whose effects would have been attributed to the ailment it was meant to cure; and though her evidence was insufficient, she probably did Ercole no injustice.  She declined testing the compound on any unfortunate dog or cat, but sealed it up in the presence of Gardon, Eutacie, and Mademoiselle Perrot, to be produced against the pedlar if ever he should be caught.

Then she asked Eutacie if there was any reason to suspect that he recognized her.  Eutacie related the former dealings with him, when she had sold him her jewels and her hair, but she had no notion of his being the same person whom she had seen when at Montpipeau.  Indeed, he had altered his appearance so much that he had been only discovered at Nid-de-Merle by eyes sharpened by distrust of his pretensions to magic arts.