ed to
enter the little closet where Muche slept. The child had been awakened
by the noise, and for the last few moments he had been crying bitterly,
as though he imagined that he was going to be murdered.

"This is my boy's room," said La Normande, opening the door.

Muche, quite naked, ran up and threw his arms round his mother's neck.
She pacified him, and laid him down in her own bed. The officers came
out of the little room again almost immediately, and the commissary
had just made up his mind to retire, when the child, still in tears,
whispered in his mother's ear: "They'll take my copy-books. Don't let
them have my copy-books."

"Oh, yes; that's true," cried La Normande; "there are some copy-books.
Wait a moment, gentlemen, and I'll give them to you. I want you to see
that I'm not hiding anything from you. Then, you'll find some of his
writing inside these. You're quite at liberty to hang him as far as I'm
concerned; you won't find me trying to cut him down."

Thereupon she handed Muche's books and the copies set by Florent to the
commissary. But at this the boy sprang angrily out of bed, and began to
scratch and bite his mother, who put him back again with a box on the
ears. Then he began to bellow.

In the midst of the uproar, Mademoiselle Saget appeared on the
threshold, craning her neck forward. Finding all the doors open, she had
come in to offer her services to old Madame Mehudin. She spied about and
listened, and expressed extreme pity for these poor women, who had
no one to defend them. The commissary, however, had begun to read
the copies with a grave air. The frequent repetition of such words as
"tyrannically," "liberticide," "unconstitutional," and "revolutionary"
made him frown; and on reading the sentence, "When the hour strikes, the
guilty shall fall," he tapped his fingers on the paper and said: "This
is very serious, very serious indeed."

Thereupon he gave the books to one of his men, and went off. Claire,
who had hitherto not shown herself, now opened her door, and watched
the police officers go down the stairs. And afterwards she came into
her sister's bedroom, which she had not entered for a year. Mademoiselle
Saget appeared to be on the best of terms with La Normande, and was
hanging over her in a caressing way, bringing the shawl forward to
cover her the better, and listening to her angry indignation with an
expression of the deepest sympathy.

"You wretched coward!" exclaimed Claire,