"And what a life, to care for no cause at all!" cried Joseph, with eloquently waving hands. "But--you say you are going to Paris, to get to the bottom of this? Well, my friend, go! And I promise you, if Ange is in danger, I will follow and take his place. You and Anne may rely upon it, he shall not be punished for my sins." "Come with me now, then! I start this very night," said Urbain. "No, no! I will not accuse myself before it is necessary," said Joseph, shaking his head and smiling. Urbain flung away in angry disgust. Joseph had a moment of profound sadness as he looked after him--they were standing in the courtyard of La Marinière--then stole away home through the lanes, carefully avoiding a sight of his sister-in-law. "I let him go! I let him go, poor Urbain! and his boy safe at Les Chouettes all the time. Why do I do it? because the house is watched day and night; because neither I, nor Gigot, nor Tobie, can go into the woods without seeing the glitter of a police carbine through the leaves; because the dogs growl at night, and there is no safe place for Angelot outside Les Chouettes, till he is out of France altogether--and that I shall have to manage carefully. Because, if his father knew he had escaped from the police, all the world would know. Et puis,--I shall make a good Royalist of you in the end, my little Angelot. Your mother will not blame me for cutting you off from the Empire, and your father must comfort himself with his philosophy. And that hopeless passion for Mademoiselle Hélène--what can be kinder than to end it--and by the great cure of all--time, absence, impossibility! Yes; the matter is in my hands, and I shall carry it through, God helping me." It was not a light burden that he had to carry, the little uncle. Never, since his brother's intervention brought him back to France and placed him where he and his old friends could amuse themselves with conspiracies which, as Joubard said, did little harm to any one, had he been in a position of such real difficulty. Riette did not at all realise what she was bringing upon her father, when she slipped into his room that night with the news that Angelot had escaped from the police. He had to keep his nephew quietly imprisoned till he could get him away safely; it required all his arguments, all his influence and strength of will, to do that; for Angelot was not an easy person to keep within four narrow walls, and only love and gratitude restrained him from obeying his own instincts, going out into the woods, risking a second arrest--hardly to be followed by a second escape--venturing over to La Marinière to see his mother. It distressed him far more to think of her, terribly anxious, ignorant of his safety, than of his father on the way to Paris. He, at any rate, though he would not find him, might come to the bottom of the mysterious business.