At this moment Morand and Geneviève went out.
On seeing this, Simon rushed into the keep, at the very moment, as we have said, when Maurice, by way of consoling her, presented the woman Tison with the bill of ten francs.
Maurice paid no attention to the presence of this miserable wretch, whom by a natural instinct he always avoided if he by any chance encountered him, regarding him in the light of a disgusting and venomous reptile.
"Ah, well!" said Simon to Tison's wife, who was wiping her eyes with her apron; "so you wish to bring yourself to the guillotine, Citizen?"
"I!" said the woman, "what put such a thought into your head?"
"Why, because you receive money from the municipal for allowing aristocrats entrance to the Austrian."
"I!" said the woman Tison; "be silent, you are mad!"
"This shall be entered in the procès-verbal," said Simon, emphatically.
"Come, now, they are friends of the Municipal Maurice, one of the best patriots that ever existed."
"Conspirators, I tell you. Besides, the Commune shall be informed; it will judge for itself."