“I conjure you, do not remain there!” said Mother Bunch, with so much earnestness, that Agricola joined her, and said to his father:  “Since sister rashes it, father, she has some reason for it.  The Boulevard de l’Hopital is a few steps from here; nobody passes that way; we can talk there without being interrupted.”

“Devil take me if I understand a word of all this!” cried Dagobert, without moving from his post.  “The children are here, and I will fetch them away with me.  It is an affair of ten minutes.”

“Do not think that, M. Dagobert,” said Mother Bunch.  “It is much more difficult than you imagine.  But come! come!—­I can hear them talk in the court-yard.”

In fact, the sound of voices was now distinctly audible.  “Come father!” said Agricola, forcing away the soldier, almost in spite of himself.  Spoil-sport, who appeared much astonished at these hesitations, barked two or three times without quitting his post, as if to protest against this humiliating retreat; but, being called by Dagobert, he hastened to rejoin the main body.

It was now about five o’clock in the evening.  A high wind swept thick masses of grayish, rainy cloud rapidly across the sky.  The Boulevard de l’Hopital, which bordered on this portion of the convent-garden, was, as we before said, almost deserted.  Dagobert, Agricola, and the serving girl could hold a private conference in this solitary place.

The soldier did not disguise the extreme impatience that these delays occasioned in him.  Hardly had they turned the corner of the street, when he said to Mother Bunch:  “Come, my child, explain yourself.  I am upon hot coals.”

“The house in which the daughters of Marshal Simon are confined is a convent, M. Dagobert.”

“A convent!” cried the soldier:  “I might have suspected it.”  Then he added:  “Well, what then?  I will fetch them from a convent as soon as from any other place.  Once is not always.”

“But, M. Dagobert, they are confined against their will and against yours.  They will not give them up.”

“They will not give them up?  Zounds! we will see about that.”  And he made a step towards the street.

“Father,” said Agricola, holding him back, “one moment’s patience; let us hear all.”

“I will hear nothing.  What! the children are there—­two steps from me—­I know it—­and I shall not have them, either by fair means or foul?  Oh! that would indeed be curious.  Let me go.”

“Listen to me, I beseech you, M. Dagobert,” said Mother Bunch, taking his hand:  “there is another way to deliver these poor children.  And that without violence—­for violence, as Mdlle. de Cardoville told me, would ruin all.”

“If there is any other way—­quick—­let me know it!”

“Here is a ring of Mdlle. de Cardoville’s.”

“And who is this Mdlle. de Cardoville?”

“Father,” said Agricola, “it is the generous young lady, who offered to be my bail, and to whom I have very important matters to communicate.”