in
the provinces, the household was early astir. The few words uttered by
Max had roused the suspicions of Monsieur Goddet, and he called to the
woman,--

"Gritte, is Monsieur Joseph Bridau in bed?"

"Bless me!" she said, "he went out at half-past four. I don't know what
ailed him; he walked up and down his room all night."

This simple answer drew forth such exclamations of horror that the
woman came over, curious to know what they were carrying to old Rouget's
house.

"A precious fellow he is, that painter of yours!" they said to her.
And the procession entered the house, leaving Gritte open-mouthed
with amazement at the sight of Max in his bloody shirt, stretched
half-fainting on a mattress.

Artists will readily guess what ailed Joseph, and kept him restless all
night. He imagined the tale the bourgeoisie of Issoudun would tell of
him. They would say he had fleeced his uncle; that he was everything but
what he had tried to be,--a loyal fellow and an honest artist! Ah!
he would have given his great picture to have flown like a swallow to
Paris, and thrown his uncle's paintings at Max's nose. To be the one
robbed, and to be thought the robber!--what irony! So at the earliest
dawn, he had started for the poplar avenue which led to Tivoli, to give
free course to his agitation.

While the innocent fellow was vowing, by way of consolation, never
to return to Issoudun, Max was preparing a horrible outrage for
his sensitive spirit. When Monsieur Goddet had probed the wound and
discovered that the knife, turned aside by a little pocket-book, had
happily spared Max's life (though making a serious wound), he did as all
doctors, and particularly country surgeons, do; he paved the way for his
own credit by "not answering for the patient's life"; and then, after
dressing the soldier's wound, and stating the verdict of science to the
Rabouilleuse, Jean-Jacques Rouget, Kouski, and the Vedie, he left the
house. The Rabouilleuse came in tears to her dear Max, while Kouski and
the Vedie told the assembled crowd that the captain was in a fair way
to die. The news brought nearly two hundred persons in groups about the
place Saint-Jean and the two Narettes.

"I sha'n't be a month in bed; and I know who struck the blow," whispered
Max to Flore. "But we'll profit by it to get rid of the Parisians.
I have said I thought I recognized the painter; so pretend that I am
expected to die, and try to have Joseph Bridau arrested. Let him