"Alfred, I say!" screamed Madame Pipelet, a second time, in a voice loud enough to awake the dead.
"Anastasie down there? Then it is impossible she can be ill up-stairs," said Pipelet, mentally, faithful to his system of close and logical argumentation. "Whose, then, was the manly voice that spoke of her illness, and of his undoing her stays? An impostor, doubtless, to whom my distraction and alarm have been a matter of amusement; but what motive could he have had in thus working upon my susceptible feelings? Something very extraordinary is going on here. However, as soon as I have been to answer my wife's inquiry, I will return to clear up this mystery, and to discover the person whose voice summoned me in such haste."
In considerable agitation did M. Pipelet descend, and find himself in his wife's presence.
"It is you, then, this time?" inquired he.
"Of course it is me; who did you expect it was?"
"'Tis you, indeed! My senses do not deceive me!"
"Alfred, what is the matter with you? Why do you stand there, staring and opening your mouth, as if you meant to swallow me?"
"Because your presence reveals to me that strange things are passing here, so strange that—"
"Oh, stuff and nonsense! Give me the key of the lodge! What made you leave it when I was out? I have just come from the office where the diligence starts from for Normandy. I went there in a coach to take M. Bradamanti's trunk, as he did not wish that little rascal, Tortillard, to know anything about it, since, it seems, he had rather no one should be acquainted with the fact of his leaving Paris this evening; and, as for his mistrusting the boy, why, I don't wonder at it."
Saying these words, Madame Pipelet took the key from her husband's hand, opened the lodge, and entered it before her partner; but scarcely were they both safe within its dark recesses, than an individual, lightly descending the staircase, passed swiftly and unobserved before the lodge. This personage was Cabrion, who, having managed to steal up-stairs, had so powerfully worked upon the porter's tender susceptibilities. M. Pipelet threw himself into his chair, saying to his wife, in a voice of deep emotion: