"You cannot doubt it."
"If I'm not at my stand, I live on Rue Saint-Lazare, corner of Rue Saint-Georges."
"I know where you live; and I tell you again that, as soon as Albert is in Paris, I will send you word."
"I count on it, madame; now, I will hurry off and get my sister; after that, I will find a way to avenge her."
Sans-Cravate put the pistols in his pocket; Madame Baldimer handed him the address, and he ran at full speed to the place indicated, where he found a carriage waiting; he jumped in, and shouted to the driver:
"To Lagny! you have been notified, engaged for me. Go at full speed, kill your horses; I am going after my poor sister, and then I'm going to kill the blackguard who seduced her, unless he consents to marry her."
The driver seemed indifferent to all this; but as he had been well paid, he drove rapidly and hardly stopped on the road; so that Sans-Cravate arrived at Lagny in a very short time.
He glanced at the address Madame Baldimer had given him, and inquired of a village woman, who directed him to "The Poplars," which was the name of the cottage he sought. He pointed out an inn and said to the driver:
"Go there and feed your horses; but do it at once and take what you want yourself in a hurry, for I shall return soon with my sister, and you must take us back to Paris on the run."
Sans-Cravate followed the directions he had received, and soon discovered a pretty little cottage surrounded by tall poplar trees, whose topmost branches waved back and forth over the roof. It had the aspect of a bourgeois residence; the shutters were painted green, there was a pretty gate, and flowering plants were in profusion on all sides.