Lisa smiled, and said they would see about it, and then once more she took herself off.  Quenu thought that it was too good of her to take so much trouble in running about after that brute Gavard.  In point of fact, however, she had simply gone upstairs to Florent’s bedroom, the key of which was hanging from a nail in the kitchen.  She hoped to find out something or other by an inspection of this room, since the poultry dealer had failed her.  She went slowly round it, examining the bed, the mantelpiece, and every corner.  The window with the little balcony was open, and the budding pomegranate was steeped in the golden beams of the setting sun.  The room looked to her as though Augustine had never left it—­had slept there only the night before.  There seemed to be nothing masculine about the place.  She was quite surprised, for she had expected to find some suspicious-looking chests, and coffers with strong locks.  She went to feel Augustine’s summer gown, which was still hanging against the wall.  Then she sat down at the table, and began to read an unfinished page of manuscript, in which the word “revolution” occurred twice.  This alarmed her, and she opened the drawer, which she saw was full of papers.  But her sense of honour awoke within her in presence of the secret which the rickety deal table so badly guarded.  She remained bending over the papers, trying to understand them without touching them, in a state of great emotion, when the shrill song of the chaffinch, on whose cage streamed a ray of sunshine, made her start.  She closed the drawer.  It was a base thing that she had contemplated, she thought.

Then, as she lingered by the window, reflecting that she ought to go and ask counsel of Abbe Roustan, who was a very sensible man, she saw a crowd of people round a stretcher in the market square below.  The night was falling, still she distinctly recognised Cadine weeping in the midst of the crowd; while Florent and Claude, whose boots were white with dust, stood together talking earnestly at the edge of the footway.  She hurried downstairs again, surprised to see them back so soon, and scarcely had she reached her counter when Mademoiselle Saget entered the shop.

“They have found that scamp of a Marjolin in the cellar, with his head split open,” exclaimed the old maid.  “Won’t you come to see him, Madame Quenu?”

Lisa crossed the road to look at him.  The young fellow was lying on his back on the stretcher, looking very pale.  His eyes were closed, and a stiff wisp of his fair hair was clotted with blood.  The bystanders, however, declared that there was no serious harm done, and, besides, the scamp had only himself to blame, for he was always playing all sorts of wild pranks in the cellars.  It was generally supposed that he had been trying to jump over one of the stone blocks—­one of his favourite amusements—­and had fallen with his head against the slab.

“I dare say that hussy there gave him a shove,” remarked Mademoiselle Saget, pointing to Cadine, who was weeping.  “They are always larking together.”