on hearing her give a
piercing cry. They found her in a dead faint; and they put her to bed,
for she was seized by a nervous fever which held her for a month between
life and death.

"Where is he?" was the only thing she would say.

Victorin sought for him in vain.

And this is why. The Baron had driven to the Place du Palais Royal.
There this man, who had recovered all his wits to work out a scheme
which he had premeditated during the days he had spent crushed with
pain and grief, crossed the Palais Royal on foot, and took a handsome
carriage from a livery-stable in the Rue Joquelet. In obedience to his
orders, the coachman went to the Rue de la Ville l'Eveque, and into the
courtyard of Josepha's mansion, the gates opening at once at the call
of the driver of such a splendid vehicle. Josepha came out, prompted
by curiosity, for her man-servant had told her that a helpless old
gentleman, unable to get out of his carriage, begged her to come to him
for a moment.

"Josepha!--it is I----"

The singer recognized her Hulot only by his voice.

"What? you, poor old man?--On my honor, you look like a twenty-franc
piece that the Jews have sweated and the money-changers refuse."

"Alas, yes," replied Hulot; "I am snatched from the jaws of death! But
you are as lovely as ever. Will you be kind?"

"That depends," said she; "everything is relative."

"Listen," said Hulot; "can you put me up for a few days in a servant's
room under the roof? I have nothing--not a farthing, not a hope; no
food, no pension, no wife, no children, no roof over my head; without
honor, without courage, without a friend; and worse than all that,
liable to imprisonment for not meeting a bill."

"Poor old fellow! you are without most things.--Are you also _sans
culotte_?"

"You laugh at me! I am done for," cried the Baron. "And I counted on you
as Gourville did on Ninon."

"And it was a 'real lady,' I am told who brought you to this," said
Josepha. "Those precious sluts know how to pluck a goose even better
than we do!--Why, you are like a corpse that the crows have done with--I
can see daylight through!"

"Time is short, Josepha!"

"Come in, old boy, I am alone, as it happens, and my people don't know
you. Send away your trap. Is it paid for?"

"Yes," said the Baron, getting out with the help of Josepha's arm.

"You may call yourself my father if you like," said the singer, moved to
pity.

She made Hulot sit down in the splendid drawin