"A dove!"
"Yes, or if you like it better, a young girl who escaped from a convent. The commissary of police arrived with his deputies, and a very fat man in a blue overcoat, who looked like a priest. He had the house opened. The fugitive was found there, and put into a carriage with the fat man in a blue overcoat. I have never seen any citizen ornamented with such a stomach."
Doctor Gasterini did not wait to hear more, but rushed through the crowd and imperatively rang the bell at the door of the little house of which we have spoken. A young servant, still pale with emotion, came to open it.
"Where is Madame Dupont?" asked the physician, impatiently.
"She is at home, sir. Oh, sir, if you only knew!"
The doctor made no reply; went through two apartments, and entered a bedchamber, where he found an aged woman, with a venerable-looking face full of sweetness.
"Ah, doctor, doctor!" cried Madame Dupont, bursting into tears, "what a misfortune, what a scandal, poor young girl!"
"I am grieved, my poor Madame Dupont, that the service you rendered me should have been followed by such disagreeable consequences."
"Oh, do not think it is that which afflicts, doctor. I owe you more than my life, since I owe you the life of my son; I do not think of complaining of a transient vexation, and I know you too well, in other things, to raise the least doubt as to the intentions which led you to ask me to give a temporary asylum to this young girl."
"By this time, my dear Madame Dupont, I can and I ought to tell you all. Here is the whole story in two words: I have a nephew, an indiscreet boy, but the bravest fellow in the world; he is captain in the marine service. In his last voyage from Cadiz to Bordeaux he took as passengers a Spanish canon and his niece. My nephew fell desperately in love with the niece, but by a series of events too long and too ridiculous to relate to you, the canon took the greatest aversion to my nephew, and informed him that he should never marry Dolores. The opposition exasperated the lovers; my devil of a nephew followed the canon to Paris, discovered the convent where the uncle had placed the young girl, put himself in correspondence with her, and eloped with her. Horace—that is his name—is an honest fellow, and, the elopement accomplished, he introduced Dolores to me and confessed all to me. While the marriage was pending, he besought me to place this young girl in a suitable house, since, for a thousand reasons, it was impossible for me to keep the child in my house after such an uproar. Then I thought of you, my good Madame Dupont."