"Oh! Fario is on the watch," said Philippe, "and he is not alone. That Spaniard has discovered one of my old soldiers in the neighborhood of Vatan, a man I once did some service to. Without any one's suspecting it, Benjamin Bourdet is under Fario's orders, who has lent him a horse to get about with."
"If you kill that monster who has corrupted my grandsons, I shall say you have done a good deed."
"Thanks to me, the town of Issoudun now knows what Monsieur Maxence
Gilet has been doing at night for the last six years," replied
Philippe; "and the cackle, as you call it here, is now started on him.
Morally his day is over."
The moment Philippe left his uncle's house Flore went to Max's room to tell him every particular of the nephew's bold visit.
"What's to be done?" she asked.
"Before trying the last means,—which will be to fight that big reprobate," replied Maxence, "—we must play double or quits, and try our grand stroke. Let the old idiot go with his nephew."
"But that big brute won't mince matters," remonstrated Flore; "he'll call things by their right names."
"Listen to me," said Maxence in a harsh voice. "Do you think I've not kept my ears open, and reflected about how we stand? Send to Pere Cognette for a horse and a char-a-banc, and say we want them instantly: they must be here in five minutes. Pack all your belongings, take Vedie, and go to Vatan. Settle yourself there as if you mean to stay; carry off the twenty thousand francs in gold which the old fellow has got in his drawer. If I bring him to you in Vatan, you are to refuse to come back here unless he signs the power of attorney. As soon as we get it I'll slip off to Paris, while you're returning to Issoudun. When Jean-Jacques gets back from his walk and finds you gone, he'll go beside himself, and want to follow you. Well! when he does, I'll give him a talking to."
CHAPTER XV
While the foregoing plot was progressing, Philippe was walking arm in arm with his uncle along the boulevard Baron.