“Mother!� ejaculated the astonished dragoon, “you old gray cat! Dame! if I do not wring your neck for your impudence when M. le Capitaine has gone.�
“Humph!� retorted Babet, grimly, “you’ll find it tough, mon fils. Your hat is in the briar bush, my lad;� and she walked back into the house with a grim smile of triumph, leaving the soldier cursing her while he searched for his hat.
Babet did not return to the kitchen; she proceeded up the stairs to the room where Rosaline was talking to M. de Baudri. The door was closed; but refined scruples were not among the good housekeeper’s faults, and she calmly applied her ear to the keyhole, all the while clasping the tongs fiercely under her apron; and for the next twenty minutes her face was a picture. More than once she had her hand on the latch, but prudence finally prevailed, and three minutes before M. de Baudri emerged, she made her way cautiously back to the kitchen. She had heard enough to understand the whole, and she descended upon the cobbler like an avalanche, carrying all before her. In the storm of her indignation she could not remain silent, and she poured out the whole story of M. de Baudri’s shameless persecution of his prisoner. Le Bossu had long ago learned the lesson of self-control, and he listened with composure, though his face seemed to have aged since the morning.
“Mon Dieu!� cried Babet, regardless now of the sentry’s stare, “he would force that white dove to marry him! That villain de Baudri—may the bon Dieu blast him as the great chestnut-tree yonder was blasted with lightning! He—the rogue—would make mademoiselle sell herself to him to save old madame and her lover. Woe is me, why did that man d’Aguesseau ever come here?�
The hunchback looked up, surprise in his dull eyes.
“What do you mean?� he demanded, “save her lover? Her lover is safe in the Cévennes.�
“Much you know!� retorted the woman, scornfully; “it seems that he was captured this morning.�
The cobbler was silent a moment, thinking deeply.
“I do not believe it,� he said quietly.
“You think it a lie of that devil’s?� asked Babet, eagerly.