le, endeavored to reassure her, to calm her. But he
could do nothing with her. She would not be appeased. In the long run
this was perhaps as well, for she unconsciously, without any intention
of aiding justice, put some clews into Bernardet's hands which finally
aided him in tracing the man.

Mme. Colard still rebelled. Did they think she was a spy, an informer?
She had never--no, never--played such a part. She did not know the young
man. She had bought the picture as she bought any number of things.

"And what if they should cut off his head because he had confidence in
entering my shop--I should never forgive myself, never!"

"It is not going to bring Charles Breton to the scaffold. Not at all,
not at all. It is only to find out who he is, and of whom he obtained
this portrait. Once more--did nothing in his face strike you?"

"Nothing!" Mme. Colard responded.

She reflected a moment.

"Ah! yes; perhaps. The shape of his hat. A felt hat with wide brim,
something like those worn in South America or Kareros. You know, the
kind they call sombrero. The only thing I said to myself was, 'This is
probably some returned traveler,' and if I had not seen at the bottom of
the picture, Bordeaux, I should have thought that this might be the
portrait of some Spaniard, some Peruvian."

Bernardet looked straight into Mme. Colard's spectacles and listened
intently, and he suddenly remembered what Moniche had said of the odd
appearance of the man who had, like the woman in black, called on M.
Rovere.

"Some accomplice!" thought Bernardet.

He again asked Mme. Colard the price of the picture.

"Anything you please," said the woman, still frightened. Bernardet
smiled.

"Come! come! What do you want for it? Fifty francs, eh? Fifty?"

"Away with your fifty francs! I place it at your disposal for nothing,
if you need it."

Bernardet paid the sum he had named. He had always exactly, as if by
principle, a fifty-franc note in his pocketbook. Very little money; a
few white pieces, but always this note in reserve. One could never tell
what might hinder him in his researches. He paid, then, this note,
adding that in all probability Mme. Colard would soon be cited before
the Examining Magistrate to tell him about this Charles Breton.

"I cannot say anything else, for I do not know anything else," said the
huge widow, whose breast heaved with emotion.

She wrapped up the picture in a piece of silk paper, then in a piece of
newspa