She went first to Caen where she was to take the diligence, and lodged with Bessin at the Coupe d’Or in the Rue Saint-Pierre.  Chauvel came there the following day to say good-bye to his friend and they dined together.  While they were at table, a man, whom the gendarme did not know, entered the room and said a few words to Mme. Acquet, who went into the adjoining room with him.  It was Lemarchand, the innkeeper at Louvigny, Allain’s host and friend.  Chauvel grew anxious at this private conversation, and seeing the time of the diligence was approaching, opened the door and warned Mme. Acquet that she must get ready to start.  To his great surprise, she replied that she was no longer going, as important interests detained her in Caen.  She begged him to escort the woman Normand and the little girl to the coach, and gave him the address of a lawyer in Rouen with whom the child could be left.  The gendarme obeyed, and when he went back to the Coupe d’Or an hour later, his mistress had left.  He returned sadly to Falaise.

Lemarchand, who had been informed of Mme. Acquet’s journey, came to tell her, from Allain, that “a lodging had been found for her where she would be secure, and that, if she did not wish to go, she had only to come to the Promenade Saint-Julien at nightfall, and some one would meet her and escort her to her new hiding-place.”  It may well be that a threat of denouncing her, if she left the country, was added to this obliging offer.  At any rate she was made to defer her journey.  Towards ten o’clock at night, according to Lemarchand’s advice, she reached the Promenade Saint-Julien alone, walked up and down under the trees for some time, and seeing two men seated on a bench, she went and sat down beside them.  At first they eyed each other without saying a word; at last, one of the strangers asked her if she were not waiting for some one.  Upon her answering in the affirmative they conferred for a moment, and then gave their names.  They were the lawyer Vannier and Bureau de Placene, two intimate friends of Le Chevalier’s.  Mme. Acquet, in her turn, mentioned her name, and Vannier offering her his arm, escorted her to his house in the Rue Saint-Martin.

They held a council next day at breakfast.  Lemarchand, Vannier, and Bureau de Placene appeared very anxious to keep Mme. Acquet.  She was, they said, sure of not being punished as long as she did not quit the department of Calvados.  Neither the prefect nor the magistrates would trouble to enquire into the affair, and all the gentry of Lower Normandy had declared for the family of Combray, which was, moreover, connected with all the nobility in the district.  Such were the ostensible reasons which the three confederates put forth, their real reason was only a question of money.  They imagined that Mme. Acquet had the free disposal of the treasure buried at the Buquets, which amounted to more than 40,000 francs.  Finding