It was not till he had finished the dressing that he asked the news of Pitou.
The matter was simple. Since the disappearance of Catherine, whom Isidore Charny had had transported to Paris with her babe, and the departure of Billet to town also, Mother Billet, whom we have never presented as a strong-minded woman, fell into an increasing state of idiocy. Dr. Raynal said that nothing would rouse her from this torpor but the sight of her daughter.
Without waiting for the cue, Pitou started to Paris. He seemed predestined to arrive there at great events.
The first time, he was in time to take a hand in the storming of the Bastile; the next, to help the Federation of 1790; and now he arrived for the Massacre of the Champ de Mars. He heard that it had all come about over a petition drawn up by Dr. Gilbert and presented by Billet to the signers.
Pitou learnt at the doctor's house that he had come home, but there were no tidings of the farmer.
On going to the scene of blood, Pitou happened on the nearly lifeless body which would have been hurled in the river but for his interposition.
It was thus that Pitou hailed the doctor in the hospital and the wounded man had his chances improved by being in such skillful hands as his friend Gilbert's.
As Billet could not be taken to his wife's bedside, Catherine was more than ever to be desired there. Where was she? The only way to reach her would be through the Charny family.
Happily Ange had been so warmly greeted by her when he took Sebastian to her house that he did not hesitate to call again.