Madame Lecoeur and La Sarriette, however, had burst into exclamations of astonishment:  “It wasn’t possible, surely!  What had he done to be sent to the galleys?  Could anyone, now, have ever suspected that Madame Quenu, whose virtue was the pride of the whole neighbourhood, would choose a convict for a lover?”

“Ah, but you don’t understand at all!” cried the old maid impatiently.  “Just listen, now, while I explain things.  I was quite certain that I had seen that great lanky fellow somewhere before.”

Then she proceeded to tell them Florent’s story.  She had recalled to mind a vague report which had circulated of a nephew of old Gradelle being transported to Cayenne for murdering six gendarmes at a barricade.  She had even seen this nephew on one occasion in the Rue Pirouette.  The pretended cousin was undoubtedly the same man.  Then she began to bemoan her waning powers.  Her memory was quite going, she said; she would soon be unable to remember anything.  And she bewailed her perishing memory as bitterly as any learned man might bewail the loss of his notes representing the work of a life-time, on seeing them swept away by a gust of wind.

“Six gendarmes!” murmured La Sarriette, admiringly; “he must have a very heavy fist!”

“And he’s made away with plenty of others, as well,” added Mademoiselle Saget.  “I shouldn’t advise you to meet him at night!”

“What a villain!” stammered out Madame Lecoeur, quite terrified.

The slanting beams of the sinking sun were now enfilading the pavilion, and the odour of the cheeses became stronger than ever.  That of the Marolles seemed to predominate, borne hither and thither in powerful whiffs.  Then, however, the wind appeared to change, and suddenly the emanations of the Limbourgs were wafted towards the three women, pungent and bitter, like the last gasps of a dying man.

“But in that case,” resumed Madame Lecoeur, “he must be fat Lisa’s brother-in-law.  And we thought that he was her lover!”

The women exchanged glances.  This aspect of the case took them by surprise.  They were loth to give up their first theory.  However, La Sarriette, turning to Mademoiselle Saget, remarked:  “That must have been all wrong.  Besides, you yourself say that he’s always running after the two Mehudin girls.”

“Certainly he is,” exclaimed Mademoiselle Saget sharply, fancying that her word was doubted.  “He dangles about them every evening.  But, after all, it’s no concern of ours, is it?  We are virtuous women, and what he does makes no difference to us, the horrid scoundrel!”

“No, certainly not,” agreed the other two.  “He’s a consummate villain.”