disappeared down the staircase at the same time the bailiffs quitted
the garret.

"Madame Morel, do you hear?" said Miss Dimpleton, trying to withdraw
the attention of the mother from her melancholy abstraction; "they
will not take away your husband--the two men are gone."

"Mother, don't you hear? they will not take father away," said the
eldest of the boys.

"Morel, listen to me," murmured Madeleine, in a state of delirium.
"Take one of the large diamonds and sell it--no one will know it, and
we shall be saved. Our Adele will no longer feel cold; she will not be
dead."

Taking advantage of a moment when none belonging to him were observing
his actions, the lapidary cautiously left the room. The bailiff was
waiting for him upon a sort of little landing, covered also by the
roof. Upon this landing, opened the door of a loft, which had formerly
been part of the garret occupied by the Morels, and in which Pipelet
kept his stock of leather; and the worthy porter called this place his
_box at the play_, because, by means of a hole made in the wall
between two laths, he was sometimes a witness to the sad scenes that
passed in the Morels' room. The bailiff noticed the door of the loft;
in a moment he thought that most likely his prisoner had reckoned upon
that outlet for escape, or to hide himself.

"Come, march, old fellow!" said he, beginning to descend the stair,
and making a sign to the lapidary to follow.