ccompanied by agents who kept watch outside the
house, was questioning Madame Vauthier as to her lodgers, and the
widow was increasing, without being aware of it, the suspicions of the
policeman.

When Nepomucene saw the police agents stationed outside the house,
he thought they had come to arrest the old man, and as he was fond of
Monsieur Auguste, he rushed to meet Monsieur Bernard, whom he now saw on
his way home in the avenue de l'Observatoire.

"Hide yourself, monsieur!" he cried, "the police have come to arrest
you. The sheriff was here yesterday and seized everything. Madame
Vauthier didn't give you the stamped papers, and she says you'll be in
Clichy to-night or to-morrow. There, don't you see those policemen?"

Baron Bourlac immediately resolved to go straight to Barbet. The former
publisher lived in the rue Saint-Catherine d'Enfer, and it took him a
quarter of an hour to reach the house.

"Ah! I suppose you have come to get that bill of sale," said Barbet,
replying to the salutation of his victim. "Here it is."

And, to Baron Bourlac's great astonishment, he held out the document,
which the baron took, saying,--

"I do not understand."

"Didn't you pay me?" said the usurer.

"Are you paid?"

"Yes, your grandson took the money to the sheriff this morning."

"Then it is true you made a seizure at my house yesterday?"

"Haven't you been home for two days?" asked Barbet. "But an old
magistrate ought to know what a notification of arrest means."

Hearing that remark, the baron bowed coldly to Barbet and returned home,
thinking that the policemen whom Nepomucene had pointed out must have
come for the two impecunious authors on the upper floor. He walked
slowly, lost in vague apprehensions; for, in spite of the explanation he
gave himself, Nepomucene's words came back, and seemed to him more
and more obscure and inexplicable. Was it possible that Godefroid had
betrayed him?

XIX. VENGEANCE

The old man walked mechanically along the rue Notre-Dame des Champs, and
entered the house by the little door, which he noticed was open. There
he came suddenly upon Nepomucene.

"Oh, monsieur, come quick! they are taking Monsieur Auguste to prison!
They arrested him on the boulevard; it was he they were looking for;
they have examined him."

The old man bounded like a tiger, rushed through the house with the
speed of an arrow, and reached the door on the boulevard in time to see
his grandson getting int