rror, but no fear. He
clasped the stock of the pistol firmly and felt reassured. "I shall be
able to stop that wretch whenever I please," he thought.

He felt that the police were there somewhere in ambuscade, waiting for
the signal agreed upon and ready to stretch out their arm.

Moreover, he was in hopes, that this violent encounter between Jondrette
and M. Leblanc would cast some light on all the things which he was
interested in learning.

CHAPTER XIX--OCCUPYING ONE'S SELF WITH OBSCURE DEPTHS

Hardly was M. Leblanc seated, when he turned his eyes towards the
pallets, which were empty.

"How is the poor little wounded girl?" he inquired.

"Bad," replied Jondrette with a heart-broken and grateful smile, "very
bad, my worthy sir. Her elder sister has taken her to the Bourbe to
have her hurt dressed. You will see them presently; they will be back
immediately."

"Madame Fabantou seems to me to be better," went on M. Leblanc, casting
his eyes on the eccentric costume of the Jondrette woman, as she stood
between him and the door, as though already guarding the exit, and gazed
at him in an attitude of menace and almost of combat.

"She is dying," said Jondrette. "But what do you expect, sir! She has so
much courage, that woman has! She's not a woman, she's an ox."

The Jondrette, touched by his compliment, deprecated it with the
affected airs of a flattered monster.

"You are always too good to me, Monsieur Jondrette!"

"Jondrette!" said M. Leblanc, "I thought your name was Fabantou?"

"Fabantou, alias Jondrette!" replied the husband hurriedly. "An artistic
sobriquet!"

And launching at his wife a shrug of the shoulders which M. Leblanc did
not catch, he continued with an emphatic and caressing inflection of
voice:--

"Ah! we have had a happy life together, this poor darling and I! What
would there be left for us if we had not that? We are so wretched, my
respectable sir! We have arms, but there is no work! We have the will,
no work! I don't know how the government arranges that, but, on my word
of honor, sir, I am not Jacobin, sir, I am not a bousingot.[30] I don't
wish them any evil, but if I were the ministers, on my most sacred word,
things would be different. Here, for instance, I wanted to have my
girls taught the trade of paper-box makers. You will say to me: 'What!
a trade?' Yes! A trade! A simple trade! A bread-winner! What a fall,
my benefactor! What a degradation, when one has been what we