him his hat and cane."

"But--he never goes out without me. Do you, monsieur?"

"Yes, Philippe, yes; I always want her--"

"It would be better to take the carriage," said Flore.

"Yes, let us take the carriage," cried the old man, in his anxiety to
make his two tyrants agree.

"Uncle, you will come with me, alone, and on foot, or I shall never
return here; I shall know that the town of Issoudun tells the truth,
when it declares you are under the dominion of Mademoiselle Flore
Brazier. That my uncle should love you, is all very well," he resumed,
holding Flore with a fixed eye; "that you should not love my uncle is
also on the cards; but when it comes to your making him unhappy--halt!
If people want to get hold of an inheritance, they must earn it. Are you
coming, uncle?"

Philippe saw the eyes of the poor imbecile roving from himself to Flore,
in painful hesitation.

"Ha! that's how it is, is it?" resumed the lieutenant-colonel. "Well,
adieu, uncle. Mademoiselle, I kiss your hands."

He turned quickly when he reached the door, and caught Flore in the act
of making a menacing gesture at his uncle.

"Uncle," he said, "if you wish to go with me, I will meet you at your
door in ten minutes: I am now going to see Monsieur Hochon. If you and
I do not take that walk, I shall take upon myself to make some others
walk."

So saying, he went away, and crossed the place Saint-Jean to the
Hochons.

Every one can imagine the scenes which the revelations made by Philippe
to Monsieur Hochon had brought about within that family. At nine
o'clock, old Monsieur Heron, the notary, presented himself with a bundle
of papers, and found a fire in the hall which the old miser, contrary
to all his habits, had ordered to be lighted. Madame Hochon, already
dressed at this unusual hour, was sitting in her armchair at the
corner of the fireplace. The two grandsons, warned the night before by
Adolphine that a storm was gathering about their heads, had been ordered
to stay in the house. Summoned now by Gritte, they were alarmed at the
formal preparations of their grandparents, whose coldness and anger they
had been made to feel in the air for the last twenty-four hours.

"Don't rise for them," said their grandfather to Monsieur Heron; "you
see before you two miscreants, unworthy of pardon."

"Oh, grandpapa!" said Francois.

"Be silent!" said the old man sternly. "I know of your nocturnal life
and your intimacy with Monsieur Maxence G