Testy and impatient, the commissioner decided that she should be taken back to her parents, but only on one condition: she must promise never to try it again.
"Come, do you promise?"
"Oh! yes, Monsieur."
"You will never try again?"
"Oh! no, indeed I will not, never—never!"
Notwithstanding her protestations, Monsieur le Commissaire de Police shook his head, as if he did not trust her oath.
Now she is outside once more, on the way to her home, to a place of refuge; but her martyrdom was not yet at an end.
In the carriage, the officer who accompanied her was too polite, too affable. She seemed not to understand, shrank from him, withdrew her hand. What torture! But the most terrible moment of all was the arrival in Rue de Braque, where the whole house was in a state of commotion, and the inquisitive curiosity of the neighbors must be endured. Early in the morning the whole quarter had been informed of her disappearance. It was rumored that she had gone away with Frantz Risler. The illustrious Delobelle had gone forth very early, intensely agitated, with his hat awry and rumpled wristbands, a sure indication of extraordinary preoccupation; and the concierge, on taking up the provisions, had found the poor mother half mad, running from one room to another, looking for a note from the child, for any clew, however unimportant, that would enable her at least to form some conjecture.
Suddenly a carriage stopped in front of the door. Voices and footsteps echoed through the hall.
"M'ame Delobelle, here she is! Your daughter's been found."