“But, Hector, would you leave me to die of despair, anxiety, and alarms!” said she, seeing herself bereft of the mainspring of her strength.

“I will come back to you, dear angel—­sent from Heaven expressly for me, I believe.  I will come back, if not rich, at least with enough to live in ease.—­Listen, my sweet Adeline, I cannot stay here for many reasons.  In the first place, my pension of six thousand francs is pledged for four years, so I have nothing.  That is not all.  I shall be committed to prison within a few days in consequence of the bills held by Vauvinet.  So I must keep out of the way until my son, to whom I will give full instructions, shall have bought in the bills.  My disappearance will facilitate that.  As soon as my pension is my own, and Vauvinet is paid off, I will return to you.—­You would be sure to let out the secret of my hiding-place.  Be calm; do not cry, Adeline —­it is only for a month—­”

“Where will you go?  What will you do?  What will become of you?  Who will take care of you now that you are no longer young?  Let me go with you—­we will go abroad—­” said she.

“Well, well, we will see,” he replied.

The Baron rang and ordered Mariette to collect all his things and pack them quickly and secretly.  Then, after embracing his wife with a warmth of affection to which she was unaccustomed, he begged her to leave him alone for a few minutes while he wrote his instructions for Victorin, promising that he would not leave the house till dark, or without her.

As soon as the Baroness was in the drawing-room, the cunning old man stole out through the dressing-closet to the anteroom, and went away, giving Mariette a slip of paper, on which was written, “Address my trunks to go by railway to Corbeil—­to Monsieur Hector, cloak-room, Corbeil.”

The Baron jumped into a hackney coach, and was rushing across Paris by the time Mariette came to give the Baroness this note, and say that her master had gone out.  Adeline flew back into her room, trembling more violently than ever; her children followed on hearing her give a piercing cry.  They found her in a dead faint; and they put her to bed, for she was seized by a nervous fever which held her for a month between life and death.

“Where is he?” was the only thing she would say.

Victorin sought for him in vain.

And this is why.  The Baron had driven to the Place du Palais Royal.  There this man, who had recovered all his wits to work out a scheme which he had premeditated during the days he had spent crushed with pain and grief, crossed the Palais Royal on foot, and took a handsome carriage from a livery-stable in the Rue Joquelet.  In obedience to his orders, the coachman went to the Rue de la Ville l’Eveque, and into the courtyard of Josepha’s mansion, the gates opening at once at the call of the driver of such a splendid vehicle.  Josepha came out, prompted by curiosity, for her man-servant had told her that a helpless old gentleman, unable to get out of his carriage, begged her to come to him for a moment.