Protos was informed that same evening by Baptistin of the stranger’s arrival, and no little alarmed at hearing that he came from Pau, he hurried off at seven o’clock the next morning to see Carola. She was still in bed.
The information which he gathered from her, the confused account that she gave of the events of the previous night, the anguish of the pilgrim (this was what she called Amédée), his protestations, his tears, left no further doubt in his mind. Decidedly his Pau preachifying had brought forth fruit—but not precisely the kind of fruit which Protos might have wished for; he would have to keep an eye on this simple-minded crusader, whose clumsy blunderings might give the whole show away....
“Come! let me pass,” said he abruptly to Carola.
This expression might seem peculiar, because Carola was lying in bed; but Protos was never one to be stopped by the peculiar. He put one knee on the bed, passed the other over the woman’s body and pirouetted so cleverly that, with a slight push of the bed, he found himself between it and the wall. Carola was no doubt accustomed to this performance, for she asked simply:
“What are you going to do?”
“Make up as a curé,” answered Protos, no less simply.
“Will you come back this way?”
Protos hesitated a moment, and then:
“You’re right; it’s more natural.”
So saying, he stooped and touched the spring of a secret door, which was concealed in the thickness of the wall and was so low that the bed hid it completely. Just as he was passing through the door, Carola seized him by the shoulder.