Besides, Fouche would never, under those circumstances, send me such fellows as these; he would know they would make me suspicious." "They alarm me," said Grevin.

"If Fouche does not distrust you, and is not seeking to probe you, why does he send them?
Fouche doesn't play such a trick as that without a motive; what is it ?" "What decides me," said Malin, "is that I should never be easy with those two Simeuse brothers in France.

Perhaps Fouche, who knows how I am placed towards them, wants to make sure they don't escape him, and hopes through them to reach the Condes." "That's right, old fellow; it is not under Bonaparte that the present possessor of Gondreville can be ousted." Just then Malin, happening to look up, saw the muzzle of a gun through the foliage of a tall linden.
"I was not mistaken, I thought I heard the click of a trigger," he said to Grevin, after getting behind the trunk of a large tree, where the notary, uneasy at his friend's sudden movement, followed him.
"It is Michu," said Grevin; "I see his red beard." "Don't let us seem afraid," said Malin, who walked slowly away, saying at intervals: "Why is that man so bitter against the owners of this property?
It was not you he was covering.

If he overheard us he had better ask the prayers of the congregation! Who the devil would have thought of looking up into the trees!" "There's always something to learn," said the notary.

"But he was a good distance off, and we spoke low." "I shall tell Corentin about it," replied Malin..