She searches the Attic.
The two mounted to the garret, and Mother Michel, lantern in hand, searched in the attic and under the roof. Silence and solitude reigned everywhere.
"You are again mistaken," murmured Mother Michel.
"No, no," replied the malicious man; "let us continue to hunt, we shall finish by finding. We haven’t looked there—behind those fagots."
The credulous Mother Michel advanced in the direction indicated, and—to the great stupefaction of Lustucru—the cat, which he believed drowned, appeared in full health and strength, and fixed its gaze upon him indignantly.
"It is he! It is he!" cried Mother Michel.
"It is he! it is he!" cried Mother Michel, seizing Moumouth in her arms. "Ah, my dear Lustucru! my good and true friend, how I thank you for conducting me here!"
The steward had scarcely any taste for compliments which he so little merited. Pale-faced and cold, he hung his head before his victim, whose preservation he could not explain to himself. It was, however, a very simple thing: Moumouth, pursued by the dogs, succeeded in leaping from the wall, and, passing from gutter to gutter, from garden to garden, from roof to roof, had reached his domicile; but, dreading the resentment of his enemy, he had not dared to appear, and had hidden himself in the garret.