Among the various theories offered for these disappearances madame thought that Fouchette was simply playing truant. The dog did not bother her calculation, as he would not share the punishment.
Monsieur was certain that the girl had enticed the dog away from home; though why she had taken her basket and hook if she were not coming back he could not say.
Le Cochon took a gloomy view of it. He was afraid some accident had befallen her,—she might have got run over by a fiacre, or have fallen into the river.
"Nonsense!" protested M. Podvin. "The dog would come home. He wouldn't get run over too, and you couldn't drown a spaniel."
It was precisely at this moment that the loud barking of Tartar broke upon their ears, confirming his master's judgment and sending a thrill through everybody in the room. This sensation, however, was by no means the same.
The brute master alone rejoiced for pure love of the dog and for the dog's sake.
Madame Podvin went in search of a certain stout strap used upon Fouchette on special occasions of ceremonial penological procedure.
Two strange men seated at some distance from each other, and who up to that moment had ignored each other's existence, exchanged looks of intelligence and rose as if to leave the place.
Le Cochon alone seemed disconcerted. His beetle brows clouded, and his right hand involuntarily sought the handle of his knife.
The instincts of the robber were this time unerring. For Tartar had scarcely licked the dirty hand of his master, when his eyes fell upon the would-be murderer of his beloved mistress. The sight appeared to startle the animal at first. But only for a second. Then, with a growl of rage that began low and ominously, like the first notes of a thunder-storm, and swelled into a howl, the spaniel sprang upon the villain and fastened his fangs in his fleshy throat.