“That is right; it is well that you are faithful to him,” said Jacques Collin to his old acquaintance.

Rastignac started with surprise at seeing Vautrin.

“Be calm,” said his old fellow-boarder at Madame Vauquer’s.  “I am your slave, if only because I find you here.  My help is not to be despised; I am, or shall be, more powerful than ever.  You slipped your cable, and you did it very cleverly; but you may need me yet, and I will always be at your service.

“But what are you going to do?”

“To supply the hulks with lodgers instead of lodging there,” replied Jacques Collin.

Rastignac gave a shrug of disgust.

“But if you were robbed——­”

Rastignac hurried on to get away from Jacques Collin.

“You do not know what circumstances you may find yourself in.”

They stood by the grave dug by the side of Esther’s.

“Two beings who loved each other, and who were happy!” said Jacques Collin.  “They are united.—­It is some comfort to rot together.  I will be buried here.”

When Lucien’s body was lowered into the grave, Jacques Collin fell in a dead faint.  This strong man could not endure the light rattle of the spadefuls of earth thrown by the gravediggers on the coffin as a hint for their payment.

Just then two men of the corps of Public Safety came up; they recognized Jacques Collin, lifted him up, and carried him to a hackney coach.

“What is up now?” asked Jacques Collin when he recovered consciousness and had looked about him.

He saw himself between two constables, one of whom was Ruffard; and he gave him a look which pierced the murderer’s soul to the very depths of la Gonore’s secret.

“Why, the public prosecutor wants you,” replied Ruffard, “and we have been hunting for you everywhere, and found you in the cemetery, where you had nearly taken a header into that boy’s grave.”

Jacques Collin was silent for a moment.

“Is it Bibi-Lupin that is after me?” he asked the other man.

“No.  Monsieur Garnery sent us to find you.”

“And he told you nothing?”

The two men looked at each other, holding council in expressive pantomime.

“Come, what did he say when he gave you your orders?”

“He bid us fetch you at once,” said Ruffard, “and said we should find you at the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Pres; or, if the funeral had left the church, at the cemetery.”

“The public prosecutor wants me?”

“Perhaps.”

“That is it,” said Jacques Collin; “he wants my assistance.”

And he relapsed into silence, which greatly puzzled the two constables.

At about half-past two Jacques Collin once more went up to Monsieur de Granville’s room, and found there a fresh arrival in the person of Monsieur de Granville’s predecessor, the Comte Octave de Bauvan, one of the Presidents of the Court of Appeals.