Five minutes after quitting Mdlle. de Cardoville, Mother Bunch, having left the garden without being perceived, reascended to the first story, and knocked gently at the door of the press-room. A sister came to open the door to her.
"Is not Mdlle. Florine, with whom I came, still here, sister?" asked the needlewoman.
"She could not wait for you any longer. No doubt, you have come from our mother the superior?"
"Yes, yes, sister," answered the sempstress, casting down her eyes; "would you have the goodness to show me the way out?"
"Come with me."
The sewing-girl followed the nun, trembling at every step lest she should meet the superior, who would naturally have inquired the cause of her long stay in the convent.
At length the inner gate closed upon Mother Bunch. Passing rapidly across the vast court-yard and approaching the porter's lodge, to ask him to let her out, she heard these words pronounced in a gruff voice: "It seems, old Jerome, that we are to be doubly on our guard to-night. Well, I shall put two extra balls in my gun. The superior says we are to make two rounds instead of one."
"I want no gun, Nicholas," said the other voice; "I have my sharp scythe, a true gardener's weapon—and none the worse for that."
Feeling an involuntary uneasiness at these words, which she had heard by mere chance, Mother Bunch approached the porter's lodge, and asked him to open the outer gate.
"Where do you come from?" challenged the porter, leaning half way out of his lodge, with a double barrelled gun, which he was occupied in loading, in his hand, and at the same time examining the sempstress with a suspicious air.