"No doubt!" said Monsieur Joseph. "Exactly! You would like to dance till to-morrow morning, while Ange is escaping. Well, shall I take you across there now? One of your pretty cousins would lend you a ball-dress!"
Riette's blushes could not be seen in the dark, but she said no more. Monsieur Joseph walked on a few paces and stopped.
"Ange will go quicker without us," he said. "Go, my boy, and God bless and protect you. We have given those rascals of police the slip, I think, or they have decided that you are not to be caught here. For the last day or two Tobie has seen nothing of them. But remember you are not safe; go cautiously and come back quickly. Do not let your mother keep you long. I believe I am doing very wrong in letting you go to her at all!"
"As to that, Uncle Joseph, it is certain that I won't leave the country without seeing her," said Angelot.
"Go, then, and don't be long, don't be rash; remember that I am dying with impatience. You have the pistols I gave you?"
"Yes."
"Don't shoot a gendarme if you can help it. It might make things more serious. Away with you! Come, Riette."
As the two walked back along the lane, Simon scrambled out of their way, like Angelot out of his, into the thick mass of one of the old truisses. The dog looked up at the tree and growled as they passed. Monsieur Joseph glanced sharply that way, but saw nothing, and called the dog to follow him, walking on a little more quickly.
"He will go straight to La Marinière," he was saying to Riette, "stay twenty minutes or so with his mother, and be back at Les Chouettes in less than an hour"—a piece of information not lost on Simon, who climbed down carefully from his tree, looked to his carbine, and chuckled as he walked slowly on towards La Marinière.
"Nothing in the world like patience," he said to himself. "Monsieur le Général ought to double my reward for this. I was right from the beginning; that old devil of a Chouan had the boy hidden in that robber's den of his. The fellows thought I was wasting my time and theirs. They didn't like being half starved and catching cold in the woods. I have had all the trouble in the world to hold them down to it. But what does it matter, so that we catch our game after all! I must choose a good place to drop on the youngster—lucky for me that he couldn't live without seeing his mother. Is he armed? Never mind! I must be fit to die of old age if I can't give an account of a boy like that. His mother, eh? Why did his father go to Paris, if they knew he was here? Perhaps they thought it wiser to keep the good news from Monsieur Urbain; these things divide families. They let him go off on a wild-goose chase after a pardon or something. Well, so that I catch him, tie him up out of the General's way, get my money, start off to Paris to see my father, and—perhaps—never come back—for this affair may make another department pleasanter—"