The next day, at nine o’clock Jules left home, hurried to the rue des Enfants-Rouges, went upstairs, and rang the bell of the widow Gruget’s lodgings.
“Ah! you’ve kept your word, as true as the dawn. Come in, monsieur,” said the old woman when she saw him. “I’ve made you a cup of coffee with cream,” she added, when the door was closed. “Oh! real cream; I saw it milked myself at the dairy we have in this very street.”
“Thank you, no, madame, nothing. Take me at once—”
“Very good, monsieur. Follow me, this way.”
She led him up into the room above her own, where she showed him, triumphantly, an opening about the size of a two-franc piece, made during the night, in a place, which, in each room, was above a wardrobe. In order to look through it, Jules was forced to maintain himself in rather a fatiguing attitude, by standing on a step-ladder which the widow had been careful to place there.
“There’s a gentleman with him,” she whispered, as she retired.
Jules then beheld a man employed in dressing a number of wounds on the shoulders of Ferragus, whose head he recognized from the description given to him by Monsieur de Maulincour.
“When do you think those wounds will heal?” asked Ferragus.
“I don’t know,” said the other man. “The doctors say those wounds will require seven or eight more dressings.”
“Well, then, good-bye until to-night,” said Ferragus, holding out his hand to the man, who had just replaced the bandage.