“We won’t tell them; but everything becomes known so quickly in small places like this!”

“They never go out or receive any visits; from whom then can they learn what happened at that infernal fête?

“So much the better; I trust you are right. But it’s daybreak already, and we have only a short time to sleep. Let us make haste. Luckily, I fall asleep very quickly myself.”

At eight o’clock in the morning, Edmond was out of bed and woke his friend.

“What! already?” muttered Freluchon; “why, we’ve hardly got to bed!”

“That may be; but it’s a long distance from here to the Tower; then we must come back, and I don’t want Monsieur Luminot’s seconds to come and not find us.”

“Oh! never you fear; those fellows won’t be in such a hurry as you are; especially if Chamoureau’s one of them.”

“I should say that he must be, as the affair took place in his house.”

“Then it will be more amusing; I will tell him that the seconds have to fight also.”

Freluchon consented to rise at last, and the two friends were soon en route for the Tower.