"Well, mother, how goes it?"
"Where is he? Have you got him?" she asked, in a breath.
"Yes, we're after him. The lads must have collared him by now."
The news quite restored her; and a nip of rum gave her the strength to drag herself to the bed, with old Goussot's assistance, and to tell her story. For that matter, there was not much to tell. She had just lit the fire in the living-hall; and she was knitting quietly at her bedroom window, waiting for the men to return, when she thought that she heard a slight grating sound in the linen-room next door:
"I must have left the cat in there," she thought to herself.
She went in, suspecting nothing, and was astonished to see the two doors of one of the linen-cupboards, the one in which they hid their money, wide open. She walked up to it, still without suspicion. There was a man there, hiding, with his back to the shelves.
"But how did he get in?" asked old Goussot.
"Through the passage, I suppose. We never keep the back door shut."
"And then did he go for you?"
"No, I went for him. He tried to get away."