"Monseigneur, Monseigneur!" she screamed, "does your Grandeur know where the plate-basket is?"
"Yes," said the Bishop.
"The Lord be praised," she continued; "I did not know what had become of it."
The Bishop had just picked up the basket in a flower-bed, and now handed it to Madame Magloire. "Here it is," he said.
"Well!" she said, "there is nothing in it; where is the plate?"
"Ah!" the Bishop replied, "it is the plate that troubles your mind. Well, I do not know where that is."
"Good Lord! it is stolen, and that man who came last night is the robber."
In a twinkling Madame Magloire had run to the oratory, entered the alcove, and returned to the Bishop. He was stooping down and looking sorrowfully at a cochlearia, whose stem the basket had broken. He raised himself on hearing Madame Magloire scream,—
"Monseigneur, the man has gone! the plate is stolen!"
While uttering this exclamation her eyes fell on a corner of the garden, where there were signs of climbing; the coping of the wall had been torn away.