"Well, then, dress yourself as quick as you can."
"I have no other dress than that you now see me in."
"I say, mate," cried Bourdin, "does he really mean to be seen in our company with such rags as those on?"
"I fear, indeed, I shall shame such gentlemen as you are!" said Morel, bitterly.
"It don"t much signify," replied Malicorne, "as n.o.body will see us in the coach."
"Father!" cried one of the children, "mother is calling for you!"
"Listen to me!" said Morel, addressing one of the men with hurried tones; "if one spark of human pity dwells within you, grant me one favour! I have not the courage to bid my wife and children farewell; it would break my heart! And if they see you take me away, they will try to follow me. I wish to spare all this. Therefore, I beseech you to say, in a loud voice, that you will come again in three or four days, and pretend to go away. You can wait for me at the next landing-place, and I will come to you in less than five minutes; that will spare all the misery of taking leave. I am quite sure it would be too much for me, and that I should become mad! I was not far off it a little while ago."
"Not to be caught!" answered Malicorne; "you want to do me! But I"m up to you! You mean to give us the slip, you old chouse!"
"G.o.d of heaven!" cried Morel, with a mixture of grief and indignation, "has it come to this?"
"I don"t think he means what you say," whispered Bourdin to his companion; "let us do what he asks; we shall never get away unless we do. I"ll stand outside the door; there is no other way of escaping from this garret; he cannot get away from us."
"Very well. But what a dog-hole! What a place for a man to care about leaving! Why, a prison will be a palace to it!" Then, addressing Morel, he said, "Now, then, be quick, and we will wait for you on the next landing; so make up some pretence for our going."
"Well," said Bourdin in a loud voice, and bestowing a significant look on the unhappy artisan, "since things are as you say, and as you think you shall be able to pay us in a short time, why, we shall leave you for the present, and return in about four or five days; but you must not disappoint us then, remember!"
"Thank you, gentlemen. I have no doubt I shall be able to pay you then."
The bailiffs then withdrew, while Tortillard, hearing the men talk of quitting the room, had hastened down-stairs for fear of being detected listening.
"There, Madame Morel!" said Rigolette, endeavouring to draw the wife of the lapidary from the state of gloomy abstraction into which she had fallen, "do you hear that? The men have gone, and left your husband undisturbed."
"Mother! mother!" exclaimed the children, joyfully, "they have not taken father away!"
"Morel, Morel!" murmured Madeleine, her brain quite turned, "take one of those diamonds--take the largest--and sell it; no one will know it, and then we shall be delivered from our misery; poor little Adele will get warm then, and come back to us."
Taking advantage of the instant when no one was observing him, the lapidary profited by it to steal from the room. One of the men was waiting for him on the little landing-place, which was also covered only by the roof; on this small spot opened the door of a garret, which adjoined the apartment occupied by the Morels, and in which M. Pipelet kept his depot of leather; and, further, this little angular recess, in which a person could not stand upright, was dignified by the melancholy porter with the name of his Melodramatic Cabinet, because, by means of a hole between the lath and plaster, he frequently indulged in the luxury of woe by witnessing the many touching scenes occasioned by the distress of the wretched family who dwelt in the garret beyond it. This door had not escaped the lynx eye of the bailiff, who had, for a time, suspected his prisoner of intending either to escape or conceal himself by means of it.
"Now, then, let us make a start of it!" cried he, beginning to descend the stairs as Morel emerged from the garret. "Rather a ragged recruit to march with," added he, beckoning to the lapidary to follow him.
"Only an instant, one single instant, for the love of G.o.d!" exclaimed Morel, as, kneeling down, he cast a last look on his wife and children through a c.h.i.n.k in the door. Then clasping his hands, he said, in a low, heart-broken voice, while bitter tears flowed down his haggard cheeks:
"Adieu, my poor children! my wife! May Heaven preserve you all!
Farewell, farewell!"
"Come, don"t get preaching!" said Bourdin, coa.r.s.ely, "or your sermons may keep us here till night, which is what I can"t stand, for I am almost froze to death as it is. Ugh! what a kennel! what a hole!"
Morel rose from his knees and was about to follow the bailiff, when the words, "Father! father!" sounded up the staircase.
"Louise!" exclaimed the lapidary, raising his hands towards heaven in a transport of grat.i.tude; "thank G.o.d I shall be able to embrace you before I go!"
"Heaven be praised, I am here in time!" cried the voice, as it rapidly approached, and quick, light steps were distinguishable, swiftly ascending the stairs.
"Don"t be uneasy, my dear," said a second voice, evidently proceeding from some individual considerably behind the first speaker, but whose thick puffing and laborious breathing announced the coming of one who did not find mounting to the top of the house so easy an affair as it seemed to her light-footed companion.
The reader may, perhaps, have already guessed that the last comer was no other than Madame Pipelet, who, less agile than Louise, was compelled to advance at a much slower pace.
"Louise! Is it, indeed, you, my own, my good Louise?" said Morel, still weeping. "But how pale you look! For mercy"s sake, my child, what is the matter?"
"Nothing, father, nothing, I a.s.sure you!" said Louise, in much agitation; "but I have run so fast! See, I have brought the money!"
"What?"
"You are free!"
"You knew, then, that--"
"Oh, yes! Here, sir, you will find it quite right," said the poor girl, placing the rouleau of gold in the hands of Malicorne.
"But this money, Louise,--how did you become possessed of it?"
"I will tell you all about it by and by; pray do not be uneasy; let us go and comfort my mother. Come, father."
"No, not just this minute!" cried Morel, remembering that, as yet, Louise was entirely ignorant of the death of her little sister; "wait an instant. I have something to say to you first. But about this money?"
"All right," said Malicorne, as, having finished counting the gold, he put it in his pocket; "precisely one thousand three hundred francs. And is that all you have got for me, my pretty dear?"
"I thought, father," said Louise, struck with alarm and surprise at the man"s question, "that you only owed one thousand three hundred francs."
"Nor do I," replied Morel.
"Precisely so!" answered the bailiff; "the original debt is one thousand three hundred francs; well, that is all right now, and we may put "settled" against that: but then, you see, there are the costs, caption, etc., amounting to eleven hundred and forty francs, still to be paid."
"Gracious heavens!" cried Louise, "I thought one thousand three hundred francs would pay everything! But, sir, we will make up the money, and bring it to you very soon; take this for the present, it is a good sum; take it as paid on account; it will go towards the debt, at least, won"t it, father?"
"Very well; then all you have to do is to bring the required sum to the prison, and then, and not till then, your father--if he is your father--will be set at liberty. Come, master, we must start, or we never shall get there."
"Do you really mean to take him away?"
"Do I? Don"t I? Just look here; I am ready to give you a memorandum of having received so much on account; and, whenever you bring the rest, you shall have a receipt in full, and your father along with it. There, now, that"s a handsome offer, ain"t it?"
"Mercy! mercy!" supplicated Louise.
"Whew!" cried the man, "here"s a scene over again! My stars, I hope this one isn"t a-going mad, too, for the whole family seems uncommon queer about the head! Well, I declare I never see anything like it! It is enough to set a man "prespiring" in the midst of winter!" and here the bailiff burst into a loud, coa.r.s.e laugh at his own brutal wit.
"Oh, my poor, dear father!" exclaimed Louise, almost distractedly; "when I had hoped to have saved you!"
"No, no!" cried the lapidary, in a tone of utter despair, and stamping his foot in wild desperation, "hope nothing for me; G.o.d has forgotten me, and Heaven has ceased to be just to a wretch like me!"
"Calm yourself, my worthy friend," said a rich, manly voice; "there is always a kind Providence that watches over and preserves good and honest men like you."
At the same instant Rodolph appeared at the door of the small recess we have spoken of, from whence he had been an invisible spectator of much that we have related; he was pale, and extremely agitated. At this sudden apparition the bailiff drew back, with surprise; while Morel and his daughter gazed on the stranger with bewildered wonder. Taking from his waistcoat pocket a quant.i.ty of folded bank-notes, Rodolph selected three, and, presenting them to Malicorne, he said: