Homais drew back with stupefaction. She came down three steps and
whispered in his ear--

"What! you didn't know it? There is to be an execution in next week.
It's Lheureux who is selling him out; he has killed him with bills."

"What a terrible catastrophe!" cried the druggist, who always found
expressions in harmony with all imaginable circumstances.

Then the landlady began telling him the story that she had heard from
Theodore, Monsieur Guillaumin's servant, and although she detested
Tellier, she blamed Lheureux. He was "a wheedler, a sneak."

"There!" she said. "Look at him! he is in the market; he is bowing to
Madame Bovary, who's got on a green bonnet. Why, she's taking Monsieur
Boulanger's arm."

"Madame Bovary!" exclaimed Homais. "I must go at once and pay her my
respects. Perhaps she'll be very glad to have a seat in the enclosure
under the peristyle." And, without heeding Madame Lefrancois, who was
calling him back to tell him more about it, the druggist walked off
rapidly with a smile on his lips, with straight knees, bowing copiously
to right and left, and taking up much room with the large tails of his
frock-coat that fluttered behind him in the wind.

Rodolphe, having caught sight of him from afar, hurried on, but Madame
Bovary lost her breath; so he walked more slowly, and, smiling at her,
said in a rough tone--