nywhere about?"

"Just left," replied Simon. "He had a last look at Capet just before
my wife locked the brat up in the inner room. Now he's gone back to his
lodgings."

A man carrying a chest, empty of its drawers, on his back now came
stumbling down the tower staircase. Madame Simon followed close on his
heels, steadying the chest with one hand.

"We had better begin to load up the cart," she called to her husband
in a high-pitched querulous voice; "the corridor is getting too much
encumbered."

She looked suspiciously at Chauvelin and at Armand, and when she
encountered the former's bland, unconcerned gaze she suddenly shivered
and drew her black shawl closer round her shoulders.

"Bah!" she said, "I shall be glad to get out of this God-forsaken hole.
I hate the very sight of these walls."

"Indeed, the citizeness does not look over robust in health," said
Chauvelin with studied politeness. "The stay in the tower did not,
mayhap, bring forth all the fruits of prosperity which she had
anticipated."

The woman eyed him with dark suspicion lurking in her hollow eyes.

"I don't know what you mean, citizen," she said with a shrug of her wide
shoulders.

"Oh! I meant nothing," rejoined Chauvelin, smiling. "I am so interested
in your removal; busy man as I am, it has amused me to watch you. Whom
have you got to help you with the furniture?"

"Dupont, the man-of-all-work, from the concierge," said Simon curtly.
"Citizen Heron would not allow any one to come in from the outside."

"Rightly too. Have the new commissaries come yet?

"Only citizen Cochefer. He is waiting upstairs for the others."

"And Capet?"

"He is all safe. Citizen Heron came to see him, and then he told me to
lock the little vermin up in the inner room. Citizen Cochefer had just
arrived by that time, and he has remained in charge."

During all this while the man with the chest on his back was waiting
for orders. Bent nearly double, he was grumbling audibly at his
uncomfortable position.

"Does the citizen want to break my back?" he muttered.

"We had best get along--quoi?"

He asked if he should begin to carry the furniture out into the street.

"Two sous have I got to pay every ten minutes to the lad who holds my
nag," he said, muttering under his breath; "we shall be all night at
this rate."

"Begin to load then," commanded Simon gruffly. "Here!--begin with this
sofa."

"You'll have to give me a hand with that," said the man. "