After waiting a long time for the doctor to declare himself, they turned desperate, and began to chatter all manner of trifles.  This had a good effect:  it roused Aubertin from his reverie, and presently he gave them the following piece of information:  “I told you the other day that a nephew of mine was just dead; a nephew I had not seen for many years.  Well, my friends, I received last night a hasty summons to his funeral.”

“At Frejus?”

“No, at Paris.  The invitation was so pressing, that I was obliged to go.  The letter informed me, however, that a diligence passes through Frejus, at eleven o’clock, for Paris.  I heard you say you were going to Frejus; so I packed up a few changes of linen, and my Ms., my work on entomology, which at my last visit to the capital all the publishers were mad enough to refuse:  here it is.  Apropos, has Jacintha put my bag into the carriage?”

On this a fierce foot-search, and the bag was found.  Meantime, Josephine leaned back in her seat with a sigh of thankfulness.  She was more intent on not being found out than on being married.  But Camille, who was more intent on being married than on not being found out, was asking himself, with fury, how on earth they should get rid of Aubertin in time.

Well, of course, under such circumstances as these the diligence did not come to its time, nor till long after; and all the while, they were waiting for it they were failing their rendezvous with the mayor, and making their rendezvous with the curate impossible.  But, above all, there was the risk of one or other of those friends coming up and blurting all out, taking for granted that the doctor must be in their confidence, or why bring him.

At last, at half-past eleven o’clock, to their great relief, up came the diligence.  The doctor prepared to take his place in the interior, when the conductor politely informed him that the vehicle stopped there a quarter of an hour.

“In that case I will not abandon my friends,” said the doctor, affectionately.

One of his friends gnashed his teeth at this mark of affection.  But Josephine smiled sweetly.

At last he was gone; but it wanted ten minutes only to twelve.

Josephine inquired amiably, whether it would not be as well to postpone matters to another day—­meaning forever.  “My ardor is chilled,” said she, and showed symptoms of crying at what she had gone through.

Camille replied by half dragging them to the mayor.  That worthy received them with profound, though somewhat demure respect, and invited them to a table sumptuously served.  The ladies, out of politeness, were about to assent, but Camille begged permission to postpone that part until after the ceremony.

At last, to their astonishment, they were married.  Then, with a promise to return and dine with the mayor, they went to the cure.  Lo and behold! he was gone to visit a sick person.  “He had waited a long time for them,” said the servant.