“Where?  Will you be so obliging as to tell me where?”

“And in excellent health, except that she is subject now and then to nervous attacks; having evidently, as I believe, been struck with some dreadful fright—­most likely during that accursed time of the Terror; for they came from Paris—­you don’t drink, honest man!  Why don’t you drink?  Very, very pretty in a pale way; figure perhaps too thin—­let me pour it out for you—­but an angel of gentleness, and attached in such a touching way to the citizen Maurice—­”

“Citizen hostess, will you, or will you not, tell me where they live?”

“You droll little man, why did you not ask me that before, if you wanted to know?  Finish your wine, and come to the door.  There’s your change, and thank you for your custom, though it isn’t much.  Come to the door, I say, and don’t interrupt me!  You’re an old man—­can you see forty yards before you?  Yes, you can!  Don’t be peevish—­that never did anybody any good yet.  Now look back, along the road where I am pointing.  You see a large heap of stones?  Good.  On the other side of the heap of stones there is a little path; you can’t see that, but you can remember what I tell you?  Good.  You go down the path till you get to a stream; down the stream till you get to a bridge; down the other bank of the stream (after crossing the bridge) till you get to an old water-mill—­a jewel of a water-mill, famous for miles round; artists from the four quarters of the globe are always coming to sketch it.  Ah! what, you are getting peevish again?  You won’t wait?  Impatient old man, what a life your wife must lead, if you have got one!  Remember the bridge.  Ah! your poor wife and children, I pity them; your daughters especially!  Pst! pst!  Remember the bridge—­peevish old man, remember the bridge!”

Walking as fast as he could out of hearing of the Widow Duval’s tongue, Lomaque took the path by the heap of stones which led out of the high-road, crossed the stream, and arrived at the old water-mill.  Close by it stood a cottage—­a rough, simple building, with a strip of garden in front.  Lomaque’s observant eyes marked the graceful arrangement of the flower-beds, and the delicate whiteness of the curtains that hung behind the badly-glazed narrow windows.  “This must be the place,” he said to himself, as he knocked at the door with his stick.  “I can see the traces of her hand before I cross the threshold.”

The door was opened.  “Pray, does the citizen Maurice—­” Lomaque began, not seeing clearly, for the first moment, in the dark little passage.

Before he could say any more his hand was grasped, his carpet-bag was taken from him, and a well-known voice cried, “Welcome! a thousand thousand times welcome, at last!  Citizen Maurice is not at home; but Louis Trudaine takes his place, and is overjoyed to see once more the best and dearest of his friends!”

“I hardly know you again.  How you are altered for the better!” exclaimed Lomaque, as they entered the parlor of the cottage.