When Dagobert, Agricola, and Mother Bunch separated, it was already dark night.

CHAPTER X.

The meeting.

It is eight o’clock in the evening, the rain dashes against the windows of Frances Baudoin’s apartment in the Rue Brise-Miche, while violent squalls of wind shake the badly dosed doors and casements.  The disorder and confusion of this humble abode, usually kept with so much care and neatness, bore testimony to the serious nature of the sad events which had thus disturbed existences hitherto peaceful in their obscurity.

The paved floor was soiled with mud, and a thick layer of dust covered the furniture, once so bright and clean.  Since Frances was taken away by the commissary, the bed had not been made; at night Dagobert had thrown himself upon it for a few hours in his clothes, when, worn out with fatigue, and crushed by despair, he had returned from new and vain attempts to discover Rose and Blanche’s prison-house.  Upon the drawers stood a bottle, a glass, and some fragments of dry bread, proving the frugality of the soldier, whose means of subsistence were reduced to the money lent by the pawnbroker upon the things pledged by Mother Bunch, after the arrest of Frances.

By the faint glimmer of a candle, placed upon the little stove, now cold as marble, for the stock of wood had long been exhausted, one might have seen the hunchback sleeping upon a chair, her head resting on her bosom, her hands concealed beneath her cotton apron, and her feet resting on the lowest rung of the chair; from time to time, she shivered in her damp, chill garments.

After that long day of fatigue and diverse emotions, the poor creature had eaten nothing.  Had she even thought of it, she would have been at a loss for bread.  Waiting for the return of Dagobert and Agricola, she had sunk into an agitated sleep—­very different, alas! from calm and refreshing slumber.  From time to time, she half opened her eyes uneasily, and looked around her.  Then, again, overcome by irresistible heaviness, her head fell upon her bosom.

After some minutes of silence, only interrupted by the noise of the wind, a slow and heavy step was heard on the landing-place.  The door opened, and Dagobert entered, followed by Spoil-sport.

Waking with a start, Mother Bunch raised her head hastily, sprang from her chair, and, advancing rapidly to meet Agricola’s father, said to him:  “Well, M. Dagobert! have you good news?  Have you—­”

She could not continue, she was so struck with the gloomy expression of the soldier’s features.  Absorbed in his reflections, he did not at first appear to perceive the speaker, but threw himself despondingly on a chair, rested his elbows upon the table, and hid his face in his hands.  After a long meditation, he rose, and said in a low voice:  “It must—­yes, it must be done!”