"Do you want to make us believe your husband is not at home?" resumed the sergeant. "We shall search the house." Then turning to his men: "Bind the hands of that young man, of the young girl and of the woman, and keep guard over the prisoners."
John Lefevre, his face still concealed under the cowl of his frock, could not be recognized by Bridget. He knew the inmates of the house, at whose hearth he had often sat as a friend. He motioned to the sergeant to follow him, and taking a lanthorn from the hand of one of the archers, mounted the stairs, entered the chamber of the married couple, and pointing with his finger to a cabinet in which Christian kept his valuables, said to him:
"The papers in question must be in there, in a little casket of black wood."
The key stood in the lock of the cabinet. The sergeant opened the two doors. From one of the shelves he took down a casket of considerable proportions.
"That is the one," said John Lefevre. "Give it to me. I shall place it in the hands of Monsieur the Criminal Lieutenant."
"That Christian must be hiding somewhere," remarked the sergeant, looking under the bed, and behind the curtains.
"It is almost certain," answered John Lefevre. "He rarely goes out at night. There is all the greater reason to expect to find him in at this hour, seeing he spent part of last night out of the house."
"Why did they not try to arrest him during the day at the printing office of Monsieur Estienne?" the sergeant inquired while keeping up his search. "He could not have been missed there."
"As to that, my friend, I shall say, in the first place, that, due to the untoward absence of Monsieur the Criminal Lieutenant, who was summoned early this morning to Cardinal Duprat's palace, our order of arrest could not be delivered until too late in the evening. In the second place, you know as well as I that the artisans of Monsieur Estienne are infected with heresy; they are armed; and might have attempted to resist the arrest of their companion. No doubt the archers would have prevailed in the end. But Christian might have made his escape during the struggle, whereas the chances were a thousand to one he could be taken by surprise at his house, in the dark, along with his family."
"And yet he still escapes us," observed the sergeant, after some fresh searches. Noticing the door of Hena's chamber, he entered and rummaged that room also, with no better results, and said: "Nothing in this direction either."