The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: next day, conjectures became suspicions. As life is all aboveboard in
a little town, the women were the first to learn that Brigitte had
made larger purchases than usual in the market. This fact could not be
disputed: Brigitte had been seen there, very early in the morning;
and, extraordinary event! she had bought the only hare the market
afforded. Now all the town knew that Madame de Dey did not like game.
The hare became, therefore, the point of departure for a vast array of
suspicions. The old men who were taking their walks abroad, remarked a
sort of concentrated activity about Madame de Dey's premises, shown by
the very precautions which the servants took to conceal it. The foot-
man was beating a carpet in the garden. The day before, no one would
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