"What was written upon it?"
"I can't tell you, sir," answered Mrs. Bread. "I couldn't read it; it
was in French."
"But could no one else read it?"
"I never asked a human creature."
"No one has ever seen it?"
"If you see it you'll be the first."
Newman seized the old woman's hand in both his own and pressed it
vigorously. "I thank you ever so much for that," he cried. "I want to
be the first, I want it to be my property and no one else's! You're the
wisest old woman in Europe. And what did you do with the paper?" This
information had made him feel extraordinarily strong. "Give it to me
quick!"
Mrs. Bread got up with a certain majesty. "It is not so easy as that,
sir. If you want the paper, you must wait."
"But waiting is horrible, you know," urged Newman.
"I am sure I have waited; I have waited these many years," said Mrs.
Bread.
"That is very true. You have waited for me. I won't forget it. And yet,
how comes it you didn't do as M. de Bellegarde said, show the paper to
some one?"
"To whom should I show it?" answered Mrs. Bread, mournfully. "It was not
easy to know, and many's the night I have lain awake thinking of it.
Six months afterwards, when they married Mademoiselle to her vicious old
husband, I was very near bringing it out. I thought it was my duty to do
something with it, and yet I was mightily afraid.
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