"Great God! what do you take me for, my friend?" cried the student, whose conscience rose in revolt at the thought of being taken for a murderer. "Have you stolen anything?" continued the jailer. "Stolen? the idea!" "What in Heaven's name have you done then?" cried the jailer testily. "To give yourself up as a criminal isn't all that is necessary: you must say what crime you've committed." "But I tell you that I'm a villain, a vile wretch, and that I deserve the wheel or the gallows!" "The crime? the crime?" the jailer repeated. "The crime? Well! I have betrayed my friend." "That's no crime," said the jailer. "Good night." And he closed the wicket. "That's not a crime, you say? that's not a crime? What is it then, pray?" And Jacques grasped the knocker with both hands, and knocked with all his strength. "What's the matter? what's the matter?" said a different voice from within the Châtelet. "It's a madman, who wants to be admitted into the prison," replied the jailer. "If he's a madman, his place is not at the Châtelet, but at the asylum." "At the asylum!" cried Aubry, scampering away as fast as his legs would carry him, "at the asylum! Peste! that's not what I want. I want to get into the Châtelet, not the asylum! Besides, paupers and beggars are sent to the asylum, and not people who have twenty Paris sous in their pocket as I have. The asylum! Why, that wretched jailer claims that to betray one's friend is no crime! So it seems that, in order to have the honor of being committed to prison one must have murdered or stolen. But now I think of it,--why might I not have led some young girl astray? There's nothing dishonorable about that. Very good, but what girl? Gervaise?" Despite his preoccupation, the student roared with laughter. "But, after all," he said, "though it isn't so, it might have been. Good! good! I have discovered my crime: I seduced Gervaise!" On the instant he set off for the young working-girl's home, ran up the sixty stairs which led to her lodgings, and burst into the room where the lovely grisette in a coquettish _négligé_ was ironing her linen. "Ah!" exclaimed Gervaise, with a fascinating little shriek; "ah! monsieur, you frightened me!" "Gervaise, my dear Gervaise," cried Aubry, rushing toward her with open arms: "you must save my life, my child." "One moment, one moment," said Gervaise, using the hot flat-iron as a shield; "what do you want, master gadabout? for three days I haven't seen you." "I have done wrong, Gervaise, I am an unfortunate wretch. But a sure proof that I love you is that I run to you in my distress. I repeat it, Gervaise, you must save my life." "Yes. I understand, you have been getting tipsy in some wine shop, and have had a dispute with some one. The archers are after you to put you in prison, and you come to poor Gervaise to give you shelter. Go to prison, monsieur, go to prison, and leave me in peace."