"I assure you that he was here at half-past seven. He must be gone on her."
Madame d'Erlande was incensed.
"The wretch," she exclaimed. "And I treated the whole thing as a joke. Poor Françoise!"
Meantime Captain d'Haumont had received certain details regarding the man who was pursuing Giselle which were to some extent reassuring. Giselle was greatly astonished to meet the Captain on her way to the shop, and as soon as she learned what had brought him, she straightway assumed that a somewhat violent scene had occurred between the two men the evening before and that the Captain intended to follow it up with a challenge to a duel.
Taking alarm at the prospect, she implored him to overlook the incident, but he expressed himself in such strong language in order to obtain from her the real truth, that in the end she told him the little that she knew about the stranger; that is to say, that he was a friend of one of Mlle. Violette's customers; that the first time she saw him was in Paris where, it seemed, he was well known in artistic and society circles; that he offered to get her on the stage, explaining that he had considerable influence in the theater; and that his name was de Saynthine.
When he left Giselle, d'Haumont said to himself: "I lost my head. I've been dreaming."
An hour later—after thinking things over—nothing remained of what he called his fancy of the evening before, but he made up his mind to escape from the scene and surroundings which prevented him from enjoying as he might, in the soft light of his honeymoon, the last precious hours of his sick leave; and he would take Françoise for a little trip in which he hoped he might encounter neither the form of Nina Noha nor the shade of the Parisian.
He attributed the confusion into which, for the time being, he was thrown to the reappearance of the dancer on his horizon. From that moment his dearest wish was to leave the place in which she was to be met. Obsessed by this thought he turned his steps towards the building at which, during the war, safe-conducts and passports were issued. Thus he passed through a part of the old town, taking a short cut. In that quarter the streets are narrow and winding. He found himself stopping outside a low-storied shop containing secondhand clothes and cheap carpets, the signboard of which bore the name "Monsieur Toulouse."
How was it that his attention was attracted by this signboard? Why did he remember the name? Later on when he asked himself these questions, he was unable to offer any explanation, except that in the subconscious depths within him, some mysterious faculty knew that the signboard would be mixed up in his life.
A hand-cart laden with vegetables was being moved, thus clearing the street. When the cart was dragged away, a sort of human specter was revealed to view, which shot past the walls and entered a dark passage adjoining Monsieur Toulouse's shop. Didier leaned for support against the wall. He had recognized the Burglar!