A miserable sentimentalist, the Notary was likely to be misunderstood for ever, and one or two indiscretions of his extreme youth had been a weapon against him through the long years of a blameless married life.
He heaved a sigh of sympathy with the Cure now.

"She has not come back yet ?" he said to the Seigneur.

"No sign of her.

She locked up and stepped out, so my housekeeper says, about the time--" "The day of old Margot's funeral," interposed the Notary.

"She'd had a letter that day, a letter she'd been waiting for, and abroad she went--alas! the flyaway--from bad to worse, I fear--ah me!" The Seigneur turned sharply on him.