"But why is he not coming to dinner as I requested?"

"Monseigneur, he is ill."

"Are you sure?"

"I have just come from there."

"Monsieur," said the count, with a stern air which was really
terrible, "what would you do with a man whom you trusted, if, after
seeing you dress wounds which you desired to keep secret from all the
world, he should reveal your misfortunes and laugh at your malady with
a strumpet?"

"I would thrash him for it."

"And if you discovered that he was also betraying your confidence and
robbing you?"

"I should endeavor to detect him, and send him to the galleys."

"Monsieur Moreau, listen to me. You have undoubtedly spoken of my
infirmities to Madame Clapart; you have laughed at her house, and with
her, over my attachment to the Comtesse de Serizy; for her son, little
Husson, told a number of circumstances relating to my medical
treatment, to travellers by a public conveyance in my presence, and
Heaven knows in what language! He dared to calumniate my wife. Besides
this, I learned from the lips of Pere Leger himself, who was in the
coach, of the plan laid by the notary at Beaumont and by you and by