everybody’s opinion Mme. Vannier was his mistress, and went to see him every day in his cell.  He was supposed to be a government spy, and Placene pretended that Vannier received money from him to keep him informed of Mme. Acquet’s doings.  Langelley, for his part, said that Placene was a rogue and that if “he had already got his share of the plunder, he received at least as much again from the police.”

The poor woman who formed the pivot of these intrigues was not spared by her unworthy accomplices.  Having in mind Joseph Buquet and Chauvel, they all suspected one another of having been her lovers.  Vannier had thus made her pay for her hospitality; Langelley and the gendarme Mallet himself, had exacted the same price—­accusations it was as impossible as it was useless to refute.  She herself well knew her own abasement, and at times disgust seized her.  On the evening of September 27th, she did not return to Vannier’s; escaping from this hell, she craved shelter from a lacemaker named Adelaide Monderard, who lodged in the Rue du Han, and who was Langelley’s mistress.  The girl consented to take her in and gave her up one of the two rooms which formed her lodgings, and which were reached by a very dark staircase.  It was a poor room under the roof, lighted by two small casements, the furniture being of the shabbiest.  Chauvel came to see her there the following day, and there it was that she learnt of the expected arrival of Captain Delaitre, sent by Mme. de Combray to save her, and secure her the means of going to England.  Mme. Acquet manifested neither regret nor joy.  She was astonished that her mother should think of her; but it seems that she did not attach great importance to this incident, which was to decide her fate.  A single idea possessed her:  how to find a retreat which would allow of her escaping from Vannier’s hateful guardianship; and Langelley, who was very surprised at finding her at the lacemaker’s, seeing her perplexity offered to escort her to a country house, about a league from the town, where his father lived.  She set out with him that very evening; at the same hour the false Captain Delaitre left Rouen, and the ruse so cleverly planned by Licquet, put an end to Mme. Acquet’s lamentable adventures.

Arriving at the Hotel du Pare on October 2d, “Captain” Delaitre went to the window of his room and saw a man hurrying down the street with a very small woman on his arm, very poorly dressed.  From his walk he recognised Chauvel dressed as a bourgeois; the woman was Mme. Acquet.  The two men bowed, and Chauvel leaving his companion, went up to the Captain’s room.  “There were compliments, handshakes, the utmost confidence, as is usual between a soldier and a sailor.”  Chauvel explained that he had walked from Falaise that afternoon, and that in order to get off, he had pretended to his chiefs that private business took him to Bayonne.  The false Delaitre immediately handed him Mme. de Combray’s two letters which Chauvel read absently.