"And you say that my mother and Thérèse have been taken to Montmorency?"
"I am quite sure of it, unless, of course, the agents could find means of conveyance somewhere else."
"A conveyance? What for?"
"To take them to Paris."
"Are they going to Paris, then?"
"I suppose so, as they are arrested."
Arrested! Olivier could not reconcile himself to the idea. Why arrested? What had they done? Of what crime were they guilty? For the tenth time the gardener told him he knew no more than he did, and the lad, beside himself with rage, violently reproached the gardener for not having fetched him at once from Saint-Prix.
"And who would have watched the house?" the gardener replied, who had thought it better to guard his bedridden wife than to compromise himself by starting off in search of Olivier.
The young man rushed into the house like a whirlwind, his haggard eyes roving round the empty rooms, with the mad, impossible hope that Thérèse was hidden behind some piece of furniture, and would burst upon him in a peal of laughter, as in the days of childish gambols. Then suddenly he darted off like a madman in the direction of Montmorency. He would go and tell the news to Leonard, who must have returned by this time. Perhaps he already knew? He stopped as suddenly: an idea had struck him. If the agents had ordered a conveyance at Montmorency, he had only to interrogate the driver. That was clear enough! So he resumed his headlong course, jumping the ditches as he went, reckless of all risks.
On the way he fell into Leonard's arms. The locksmith had learnt everything from the driver who had taken Clarisse and Thérèse to Paris, and had stopped at the workshop on his way back. The two women had been placed in the prison of La Bourbe, at Port-Royal, arrested as "suspects."