‘He would not be in the town,’ said the elder girl. ‘My poor father had sent him word to go away.
‘Eh quoi?
‘Our father was Bailli la Grasse,’ interposed the younger girl, consequentially. ‘Our names were Marthe and Lucie la Grasse, but Agathe and Eulalie are much prettier.
‘But Maitre Gardon?’ still asked Berenger.
‘He ought to be take and burnt,’ said the new Eulalie; ‘he brought it all on us.
‘How was it? Was my wife with him—Madame de Ribaumont? Speak, my child.
‘That was the name,’ said one girl.
‘But Maitre Gardon had no great lady with him,’ said the other, ‘only his son’s widow and her baby, and they lodged with Noemi Laurent, who made the patisserie.
‘Ah!’ cried Berenger, lighting up with the new ray of hope. ‘Tell me, my dear, that they fled with him, and where.
‘I do not know of their going,’ said Agathe, confused and overborne by his eagerness.