"Morel, do not go!" said Madeleine, wildly. "Kill them, the thieves!
Oh, you are a coward! You will let them take you, and abandon us to
our fate."

"Act as though you were at home, madame," said Bourdin, sarcastically;
"but if your husband lifts his hand against me, I will give him
something to remember it by," continued he, twisting his loaded stick
round and round.

Occupied solely with thoughts of Louise, Morel heard nothing of what
was said. Suddenly, an expression of bitter joy lighting up his face,
he cried out, "Louise has quitted the lawyer's house. I shall go to
prison with a light heart!" But then, glancing round him, he
exclaimed, "But my wife, and her mother, and my poor children--who
will support them? They will not trust me with stones to cut in
prison; for it will be supposed that my own misconduct has sent me
there. Does this lawyer desire the death of all of us?"

"Once for all, let us be off!" said Bourdin; "I am sick of all this.
Come, dress yourself and march."

"My good gentleman, forgive what I have just said to you," cried
Madeleine, still in bed; "you will not have the cruelty to take away
Morel; what do you think will become of me, with my five children, and
my idiot mother? There she is, huddled up on her mattress. She is
foolish, my good gentlemen; she is quite out of her mind."

"The old woman that is shorn?"

"Sure enough she is shaved," said Malicorne; "I thought she had on a