I made an appointment with him at an hour when I knew they would be all in the parlour.  He was to enter directly the door was opened, and I would come in at the same instant and point out the women he had to arrest.  In England all judicial proceedings are conducted with the utmost punctuality, and everything went off as I had arranged.  The bailiff and his subaltern stepped into the parlour and I followed in their footsteps.  I pointed out the mother and the two sisters and then made haste to escape, for the sight of the Charpillon, dressed in black, standing by the hearth, made me shudder.  I felt cured, certainly; but the wounds she had given me were not yet healed, and I cannot say what might have happened if the Circe had had the presence of mind to throw her arms about my neck and beg for mercy.

As soon as I had seen these women in the hands of justice I fled, tasting the sweets of vengeance, which are very great, but yet a sign of unhappiness.  The rage in which I had arrested the three procuresses, and my terror in seeing the woman who had well-nigh killed me, shewed that I was not really cured.  To be so I must fly from them and forget them altogether.

The next morning Goudar came and congratulated me on the bold step I had taken, which proved, he said, that I was either cured or more in love than ever.  “I have just come from Denmark Street,” he added, “and I only saw the grandmother, who was weeping bitterly, and an attorney, whom no doubt she was consulting.”

“Then you have heard what has happened?”

“Yes, I came up a minute after you had gone and I stayed till the three old sluts made up their minds to go with the constable.  They resisted and said he ought to leave them till the next day, when they would be able to find someone to bail them.  The two bravos drew their swords to resist the law, but the other constable disarmed them one after the other, and the three women were led off.  The Charpillon wanted to accompany them, but it was judged best that she should remain at liberty, in order to try and set them free.”

Goudar concluded by saying that he should go and see them in prison, and if I felt disposed to come to an arrangement he would mediate between us.  I told him that the only arrangement I would accept was the payment of the six thousand francs, and that they might think themselves very lucky that I did not insist on having my interest, and thus repaying myself in part for the sums they had cheated out of me.

A fortnight elapsed without my hearing any more of the matter.  The Charpillon dined with them every day, and in fact, kept them.  It must have cost her a good deal, for they had two rooms, and their landlord would not allow them to have their meals prepared outside the prison.  Goudar told me that the Charpillon said she would never beg me to listen to her mother, though she knew she had only to call on me to obtain anything she wanted.  She thought me the most abominable of men.  If I feel obliged to maintain that she was equally abominable, I must confess that on this occasion she shewed more strength of mind than I; but whereas I had acted out of passion, her misdeeds were calculated, and tended solely to her own interests.