Not a sign of him! We hunt, we call. Nothing. Oh, the hypocrite, the
hypocrite! How he has tricked us! He has gone, he is at Orange. None
of those about me can believe in this venturesome pilgrimage. I
declare that the deserter is at this moment at Orange mewing outside
the empty house.

Aglae and Claire went to Orange. They found the Cat, as I said they
would, and brought him back in a hamper. His paws and belly were
covered with red clay; and yet the weather was dry, there was no mud.
The Cat, therefore, must have got wet crossing the Aygues torrent; and
the moist fur had kept the red earth of the fields through which he
passed. The distance from Serignan to Orange, in a straight line, is
four and a half miles. There are two bridges over the Aygues, one
above and one below that line, some distance away. The Cat took
neither the one nor the other: his instinct told him the shortest road
and he followed that road, as his belly, covered with red mud, proved.
He crossed the torrent in May, at a time when the rivers run high; he
overcame his repugnance to water in order to return to his beloved
home. The Avignon Tom did the same when crossing the Sorgue.

The deserter was reinstated in his attic at Serignan. He stayed there
for a fortnight; and at last we let him out. Twenty-four hours had not
elapsed before he was back at Orange. We had to abandon him to his
unhappy fate. A neighbour living out in the country, near my former
house, told me that he saw him one day hiding behind a hedge with a
rabbit in his mouth. Once no longer provided with food, he, accustomed
to all the sweets of a Cat's existence, turned poacher, taking toll of
the farm-yards round about my old home. I heard no more of him. He
came to a bad end, no doubt: he had become a robber and must have met