The time had come to say good-bye. Mme. Acquet embraced Chauvel who parted from her "in the tenderest manner, enjoining Delaitre to take the greatest care of the precious object confided to him." Langelley, armed with a club for a riding whip, placed himself at the head of the cavalcade, Delaitre warmly wrapping Mme. Acquet in his cloak, took her up behind him, and with renewed good wishes, warm handshakes, and sad "au revoirs" the horsemen set off at a trot on the road to Dives. Chauvel saw them disappear in the mist, but he waited at the deserted crossroads as long as he could hear the clatter of their horses' hoofs on the road.
They arrived at Dives about three in the morning. The young woman, who had seemed very lively, protested that she was not tired, and refused to get off. Therefore Langelley alone entered the post-house, woke up the guide he had engaged the day before, and they continued their journey. The day was breaking when they arrived at Annebault; the three travelers halted at an inn where they spent the whole day; the lawyer and Mme. Acquet settled their little accounts. They slept a little, they talked a great deal, and spent a long time over dinner. At six in the evening they mounted their horses again and took the road to Pont-l'Evêque. Langelley escorted the fugitives as far as the forest of Touques: before leaving Mme. Acquet, he asked her for a lock of her hair; he then embraced her several times.
It was nearly midnight when the young woman found herself alone with Delaitre. The horse advanced with difficulty along the forest roads. Clinging to the Captain with both arms, Mme. Acquet no longer talked; her excitement of yesterday had given place to a kind of stupor, so that Delaitre, who in the darkness could not see that her great dark eyes were open, thought that she had fallen asleep on his shoulder. At three in the morning they at length arrived at the suburbs of Pont-Audemer; the Captain stopped at the post-house and asked for a room; in the register which was presented to him he wrote: "Monsieur Delaitre and wife."
They were breakfasting towards noon when a non-commissioned marine officer, accompanied by an escort of two men, entered the room. He went straight up to Delaitre, asked his name, and observing his agitation, called upon him to show his papers. These he took possession of after a brief examination, and then ordered the soldiers to put Delaitre under arrest.
The officer, an amiable and talkative little man, continually excused himself to Mme. Acquet for the annoyance he was causing her. Captain Delaitre, he said, had left his ship without any authority, and it had been pointed out, moreover, that he had willingly engaged in smuggling while pretending to be trading along the coast. He did not commit the indiscretion of inquiring the lady's name, nor what reason she had for scouring the country in company of a ship's captain; but he carefully gave her to understand that she must be detained until they got to Rouen, whither Delaitre would be escorted to receive a reprimand from the commandant of the port. Mme. Acquet was convinced that it was nothing but a misunderstanding which would be cleared up at Rouen, and troubled very little about the incident; and as she was worn out with fatigue, she expressed a wish to spend that night and the following day at Pont-Audemer. The little officer consented with alacrity, and whilst appearing only to keep an eye on Delaitre, he never for an instant lost sight of the young woman, whose attitudes, gestures and appearance he scrutinised with malicious eyes. It was Licquet, as we have already guessed, who in his haste to know the result of the false Delaitre's adventures, had dressed himself up in a borrowed uniform and come to receive his new victim. He was full of forethought for her; he took her in a carriage from Pont-Audemer to Bourg-Achard, where he allowed her to rest. On the morning of the seventh they left Bourg-Achard and arrived at Rouen before midday. The kindly officer was so persuasive that Mme. Acquet offered no resistance nor recriminations when she was taken to the Conciergerie, where she was entered under the name of Rosalie Bourdon, doubtless the one under which she had travelled. She appeared quite indifferent to all that went on around her. On entering this prison, where she knew her mother was, she showed absolutely no emotion. She remained in this state of resigned lassitude for two days. Licquet, who came to see her several times, endeavoured to keep her under the impression that her imprisonment had no other cause than Delaitre's infringement of the maritime regulations; he even took the precaution of pretending not to know her name.
Meanwhile, he laid his plans for attack. At first his joy, at capturing the much desired prey had been so keen that he could not withstand the pleasure of writing the news straight to Réal whom he asked to keep it secret for a fortnight. On reflexion he realised how difficult it would be to obtain confessions from a woman who had been so hideously deceived, and he felt that the traps, into which the naïve Mme. de Combray had fallen would be of no avail in her daughter's case. He had better ones: on his person he carried the letter which Mme. de Combray had written to her dear Delaitre, which he had taken from the Captain in Mme. Acquet's very presence. In this letter, the Marquise had spoken of her daughter as "the vilest of creatures, lamenting that for her own safety she was obliged to come to the assistance of such a monster; she especially complained of the amount of money it was costing her."
On the 9th of October, Licquet came into Mme. Acquet's cell, began to converse familiarly with her, told her that he knew her name and showed her Mme. de Combray's letter. On reading it Mme. Acquet flew into a violent passion. Licquet comforted her, gave her to understand that he was her only friend, that her mother hated her and had only helped her in the hope of saving her own life; that the lawyer Lefebre had sold himself to the police on giving the Chauvels' address at Falaise, in proof of which he showed her the note written by the lawyer's own hand. He even went so far as to allude to certain infidelities on the part of Le Chevalier, and to the mistresses he must have had in Paris, till at last the unhappy woman burst into tears of indignation and grief.
"Enough," she said; "it is my turn now; you must receive my declaration immediately, and take it at once to the prefect. I will confess everything. My life is a burden to me."
She immediately told the long story of d'Aché's plans, his journeys to England, the organisation of the plot, the attempt to print the Prince's manifesto, and also how he had beguiled Le Chevalier and had succeeded in drawing him into it, by promises of high rank and great honours. She said, too, that d'Aché whom she accused of having caused all the unhappiness of her life, had recommended robbing the public treasury; that the attacks on the coaches had been carried out by his orders, which had been "to stop them all." She accused her mother of helping to transport the booty to Caen; herself she accused of having sheltered the brigands. The only ones she excused were Joseph Buquet, who had only carried out her instructions, and Le Chevalier whom she represented as beguiled by d'Aché's misleading promises. Her "frantic passion" was apparent in every word she uttered: she even told Licquet that "if she could save Le Chevalier's life at the cost of her own she would not hesitate."
When she had finished her long declaration, she fell into a state of deep depression. On entering the prison next day, Licquet found her engaged in cutting off her magnificent hair, which, she said sadly, she wished to save from the executioner. She observed that since she was miserably destined to die, Chauvel, who called himself her friend, had done very wrong in preventing her from taking poison: all would have been over by now. But she hoped that grief would kill her before they had time to condemn her.