"The robbers have taken him."
"It is not possible!" exclaimed Monsieur Goulden, letting fall his arms by his side.
"It shows their villainy," replied my aunt, and growing more and more excited, she cried, "Will a revolution never come again? Shall those wretches always be our masters?"
"Calm yourself, Mother Grédel," said Monsieur Goulden. "In the name of Heaven don't cry so loud. Joseph, tell me how it happened. They are surely mistaken; it cannot be otherwise. Did Monsieur the Mayor and the hospital surgeon say nothing?"
I told the history of the letter between my sobs, and Aunt Grédel, who until then knew nothing of it, again shrieked with her hands clinched.
"O the scoundrel! God grant that he may cross my threshold again. I will cleave his head with my hatchet."
Monsieur Goulden was astounded.
"And you did not say that it was false. Then the story was true?"'
And as I bowed my head without replying he clasped his hands, saying:
"O youth! youth! it thinks of nothing. What folly! what folly!"