After a quarter of an hour Madame Darcourt came out and called me, as she knew I was certain to be somewhere near. I let her call me two or three times; then, as I detected a more reassuring intonation in her third call, I ventured to draw near.

"Is that you, you naughty child?" said my mother.

"Come! do not scold him," interrupted Madame Darcourt; "he has been punished quite enough."

"Thank goodness if he has," said my mother, nodding her head up and down.

I heaved a sigh which shook the stonework against which I was leaning.

"You know that M. Deviolaine has been?" said my mother.

"Yes, I know he has, I saw him coming; that was why I ran away."

"He positively insists that you shall be sent to prison."

"Oh! he has no right to send me to prison," I retorted.