Meanwhile there was trouble at Rancy-les-Bois. Mr. and Mrs. Desmond, after a series of most adventurous adventures, had arrived at Bâle, and there, with characteristic imprudence, proceeded to narrate to a much interested circle of friends and relatives the full and particular details of their escape. Rancy was mentioned, Mlle Ange described and praised, Aline’s story brought in, Madelon’s part in the drama given its full value. Such imprudence may seem inconceivable, but it had more than one parallel. In this instance trouble was not long in breeding. Three years previously Joseph Pichon of Bâle had gone Paris-wards to seek his fortune. Circumstances had sent him as apprentice to M. Bompard, the watchmaker of Rancy’s market-town. Here he stayed two years, years which were enlivened by tender passages between him and Marie, old Bompard’s only child. At the end of two years M. Pichon senior died, having lost his elder son about six months before. Joseph, therefore, came in for his father’s business, and immediately made proposals for the hand of Mlle Marie. Bompard liked the young man, Marie declared she loved him; but the times were ticklish. It was not the moment for giving one’s heiress to a foreigner. Such an action might be unfavourably construed, deemed unpatriotic; so Joseph departed unbetrothed, but with as much hope as it is good for a young man to nourish. His views were Republican, his sentiments ardent. By the time his own affairs were settled it was to be hoped that public matters would also be quieter, and then—why, then Marie Bompard might become Marie Pichon, no one forbidding. Imagine, then, the story of the Desmonds’ escape coming to the ears of Joseph the Republican. He burned with interest, and, having more than a touch of the busybody, sat down and wrote Bompard a full account of the whole affair. Bompard was annoyed. He crackled the pages angrily, and stigmatised Joseph as a fool and a meddler. Bompard was fat, and a good, kind, easy man; he desired to live peaceably, and really the times made it very difficult. His first impulse was to put the paper in the fire and hold his tongue. Then he reflected that he was not Joseph’s only acquaintance in the place. If the young man were to write to Jean Dumont, the Mayor’s son, for instance, and then it was to come out that the facts had been known to Bompard, and concealed by him. "Seigneur!" exclaimed Bompard, mopping his brow, which had become suddenly moist. Men’s heads had come off for less than that. He read the letter again, drumming on his counter the while, with a stubby, black-nailed hand; at any rate, risk or no risk, Madelon must not be mentioned. He had known her from a child; there was, in fact, some very distant connection between the families, and she was a good, pretty girl. Bompard was a fatherly man. He liked to chuck a pretty girl under the chin, and see her blush, and Madelon had a pleasant trick of it; and then, just now, all the world