‘Well,’ said Vandeloup, in a quiet voice, in French, shaking off the dumb man’s arm, ‘what do you want?’

Pierre pointed to the cab, whereupon M. Vandeloup shrugged his shoulders.  ‘Surely you don’t want to come to the gaol with me,’ he said, mockingly, ‘you’ll get there soon enough.’

The other nodded, and made a step towards the cab, but Vandeloup pushed him back.

‘Curse the fool,’ he muttered to himself, ’I’ll have to humour him or he’ll be making a scene—­you can’t come,’ he added aloud, but Pierre still refused to go away.

This conversation or rather monologue, seeing M. Vandeloup was the only speaker, was carried on in French, so the cabman and the servant at the door were quite ignorant of its purport, but looked rather astonished at the conduct of the dirty tramp towards such an elegant-looking gentleman.  Vandeloup saw this and therefore determined to end the scene.

‘Well, well,’ he said to Pierre in French, ‘get in at once,’ and then when the dumb man entered the cab, he explained to the cabman in English:—­’This poor devil is a pensioner of mine, and as he wants to see a friend of his in gaol I’ll take him with me.’

He stepped into the cab which drove off, the cabman rather astonished at the whole affair, but none the less contented himself with merely winking at the pretty servant girl who stood on the steps, whereupon she tossed her head and went inside.

As they drove along Vandeloup said nothing to Pierre, not that he did not want to, but he mistrusted the trap-door in the roof of the cab, which would permit the cabman to overhear everything.  So they went along in silence, and when they arrived at the gaol Vandeloup told the cabman to wait for him, and walked towards the gaol.

‘You are coming inside, I suppose,’ he said, sharply, to Pierre, who still slouched alongside.

The dumb man nodded sullenly.

Vandeloup cursed Pierre in his innermost heart, but smiled blandly and agreed to let him enter with him.  There was some difficulty with the warder at the door, as the permission to see the prisoner was only made out in the name of M. Vandeloup, but after some considerable trouble they succeeded in getting in.

‘My faith!’ observed Gaston, lightly, as they went along to the cell, conducted by a warder, ’it’s almost as hard to get into gaol as to get out of it.’

The warder admitted them both to Kitty’s cell, and left them alone with her.  She was seated on the bed in the corner of the cell, in an attitude of deepest dejection.  When they entered she looked up in a mechanical sort of manner, and Vandeloup could see how worn and pinched-looking her face was.  Pierre went to one end of the cell and leaned against the wall in an indifferent manner, while Vandeloup stood right in front of the unhappy woman.  Kitty arose when she saw him, and an expression of loathing passed over her haggard-looking face.