s latter opened at the
moment when I was putting the key on a table; and the moment my master
saw me by the light of the lamp, which was burning in his chamber, then
he suddenly shut the door on some person whom I could not see, and
then, in spite of the darkness, rushed towards me and, seizing me by the
throat as if he would strangle me, said, in a low voice, and in a tone
at once savage and alarmed, 'What! listening!--spying at the door! What
did you hear? Answer me,--answer directly, or I'll strangle you.' But,
suddenly changing his idea, and not giving me time to say a word, he
drove me back into the dining-room; the office door was open, and he
brutally thrust me in and shut the door."

"And you did not hear the conversation?"

"Not a word, sir; if I had known that there was any one in his room with
him, I should have been careful not to have gone there. He even forbade
Madame Seraphin from doing so."

"And, when you left the office, what did he say to you?"

"It was the housekeeper who let me out, and I did not see M. Ferrand
again that night. His violence to me, and the fright I had undergone,
made me very ill indeed. The next day, at the moment when I went
down-stairs, I met M. Ferrand, and I shuddered when I remembered his
threats of the night before; what then was my surprise when he said to
me calmly, 'You knew that I forbid any one to enter my private room when
I have any person there; but, for the short time longer you will stay
here, it is useless to scold you any more.' And then he went into his
study. This mildness astonished me after his violence of the previous
evening. I went on with my work as usual, and was going to put his
bedchamber to rights. I had suffered a great deal all night, and was
weak and exhausted. Whilst I was hanging up some clothes in a dark
closet at the end of the room near the bed, I was suddenly seized with a
painful giddiness, and felt as if I should lose my senses; as I fell, I
tried to support myself by grasping at a large cloak which hung against
the wainscot; but in my fall I drew this cloak down on me, and was
almost entirely covered by it. When I came to myself, the glass door of
the above closet was shut. I heard M. Ferrand's voice,--he was speaking
aloud. Remembering the scene of the previous evening, I thought I should
be killed if I stirred. I suppose that, hidden by the cloak which had
fallen on me, my master did not perceive me when he shut the door of
this dark