"Oh! he must be poorly!"
"Don't worry yourself," the old lady replied; "the scamp has been up to some fresh mischief, and has probably an uneasy conscience."
Oh I dear Madame Dupuis, what a profound knowledge you had of the human heart in general, and of my heart in particular!
No, I hadn't a clear conscience, and so I remained standing at the window, half-hidden behind the curtains, exploring the square on all sides to see if a keeper or a policeman, or even Tournemolle, with whom I had already had a skirmish over my pistol, were coming to the house from some quarter or other.
One far worse than keeper, or policeman, or Tournemolle came into the square.
M. Deviolaine came himself!
For one moment I hoped he might not be coming to the house: we lived next-door to an old keeper on whom he called sometimes.
But there was soon no longer room for doubt; one might have said that a mathematician had drawn a diagonal from the rue du Château to the threshold of our house, and that M. Deviolaine had made a bet to follow this diagonal without stepping a single hair's-breadth out of the line.
My only hope lay in escape, and I had laid my plans in five seconds.
I flew rapidly down the staircase; through two glass doors at the bottom of the stairs one could see into the shop. Directly M. Deviolaine opened the shop door, I bounded through a door which communicated with Lafarge's house, and, from Lafarge's house into a path that led to the street; I gained the king's highway; I cleared the houses; I reached the place de l'Abreuvoir, by a back passage, and from the place de l'Abreuvoir I entered Montagnon's house by the famous back door, which until that moment I had looked upon only as a means of exit, but which I was to make use of twice in one day as a means of entrance.