excessively puzzled as to Dinah's position.

At bedtime council was held, one of those discussions which take place
in the passages of old country-houses where the bachelors linger, candle
in hand, for mysterious conversations.

Monsieur Gravier was now informed of the object in view during this
entertaining evening which had brought Madame de la Baudraye's innocence
to light.

"But, after all," said Lousteau, "our hostess' serenity may indicate
deep depravity instead of the most child-like innocence. The Public
Prosecutor looks to me quite capable of suggesting that little La
Baudraye should be put in pickle----"

"He is not to return till to-morrow; who knows what may happen in the
course of the night?" said Gatien.

"We will know!" cried Monsieur Gravier.

In the life of a country house a number of practical jokes are
considered admissible, some of them odiously treacherous. Monsieur
Gravier, who had seen so much of the world, proposed setting seals on
the door of Madame de la Baudraye and of the Public Prosecutor. The
ducks that denounced the poet Ibycus are as nothing in comparison with
the single hair that these country spies fasten across the opening of a
door by means of two little flattened pills of wax, fixed so high up, or
so low down, that the trick is never suspected. If the gallant comes out
of his own door and opens the other, the broken hair tells the tale.

When everybody was supposed to be asleep, the doctor, the journalist,
the receiver of taxes, and Gatien came barefoot, like robbers, and
silently fastened up the two doors, agreeing to come again at five
in the morning to examine the state of the fastenings. Imagine their
astonishment and Gatien's delight when all four, candle in hand, and
with hardly any clothes on, came to look at the hairs, and found them in
perfect preservation on both doors.

"Is it the same wax?" asked Monsieur Gravier.

"Are they the same hairs?" asked Lousteau.

"Yes," replied Gatien.

"This quite alters the matter!" cried Lousteau. "You have been beating
the bush for a will-o'-the-wisp."

Monsieur Gravier and Gatien exchanged questioning glances which were
meant to convey, "Is there not something offensive to us in that speech?
Ought we to laugh or to be angry?"

"If Dinah is virtuous," said the journalist in a whisper to Bianchon,
"she is worth an effort on my part to pluck the fruit of her first
love."

The idea of carrying by storm a fortress that had f