"May I take a great liberty, sir?"
"You have never taken a liberty but you have justified it," said Newman,
with diplomatic urbanity.
Mrs. Bread dropped her wrinkled eyelids as if she were curtseying; but
the curtsey stopped there; the occasion was too grave. "You have come to
plead with them again, sir? Perhaps you don't know this--that Madame de
Cintre returned this morning to Paris."
"Ah, she's gone!" And Newman, groaning, smote the pavement with his
stick.
"She has gone straight to the convent--the Carmelites they call it. I
see you know, sir. My lady and the marquis take it very ill. It was only
last night she told them."
"Ah, she had kept it back, then?" cried Newman. "Good, good! And they
are very fierce?"
"They are not pleased," said Mrs. Bread. "But they may well dislike it.
They tell me it's most dreadful, sir; of all the nuns in Christendom the
Carmelites are the worst. You may say they are really not human, sir;
they make you give up everything--forever. And to think of HER there! If
I was one that cried, sir, I could cry."
Newman looked at her an instant. "We mustn't cry, Mrs. Bread; we must
act. Go and call them!" And he made a movement to enter farther.
But Mrs. Bread gently checked him. "May I take another liberty? I am
told you were with my dearest Mr.
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