And Dubourg said to himself:
"He'll receive me cordially, when he knows that I have broken the bank again in less than a month! How in the devil am I to get out of the scrape? And how am I going to ask him for anything, when he gave it all to me? I can't go and preach to him—that isn't in my line. Indeed, I think that I shall have to induce Ménard to come and live in the woods with me; we will become hermits, and I won't play écarté any more."
The travellers made a détour round Grenoble, without entering the city. They halted in a small village, and Ménard spoke again of joining Frédéric. Dubourg lost his patience, and told him that he would go alone to Vizille to see what he could learn. He left the village, walked as far as a small patch of forest, lay down on the grass, slept there all day, and at night returned to Ménard, holding his handkerchief to his eyes and sighing as if his heart were broken.
"Well, well! what in heaven's name has happened to him?" inquired the tutor, anxiously.
"The ingrate! the harebrained fool!"
"Speak, monsieur le baron, I entreat you!"
"I suspected that he would do some insane thing. He has gone off with his fair one. They left the forest a fortnight ago."
"Great heaven! what will monsieur le comte say? what answer shall I make him, when he asks me what I have done with his son?"
"You must tell him that you lost him."
"Do you believe, monsieur le baron, that such an answer will satisfy him?"