“Will you come home to us?” “Oh, no, no!” cried the old man. “I would rather go to America.” “Adeline is on the scent.” “Oh, if only some one would pay my debts!” said the Baron, with a suspicious look, “for Samanon is after me.” “We have not paid up the arrears yet; your son still owes a hundred thousand francs.” “Poor boy!” “And your pension will not be free before seven or eight months.--If you will wait a minute, I have two thousand francs here.” The Baron held out his hand with fearful avidity. “Give it me, Lisbeth, and may God reward you! Give it me; I know where to go.” “But you will tell me, old wretch?” “Yes, yes. Then I can wait eight months, for I have discovered a little angel, a good child, an innocent thing not old enough to be depraved.” “Do not forget the police-court,” said Lisbeth, who flattered herself that she would some day see Hulot there. “No.--It is in the Rue de Charonne,” said the Baron, “a part of the town where no fuss is made about anything. No one will ever find me there. I am called Pere Thorec, Lisbeth, and I shall be taken for a retired cabinet-maker; the girl is fond of me, and I will not allow my back to be shorn any more.” “No, that has been done,” said Lisbeth, looking at his coat. “Supposing I take you there.” Baron Hulot got into the coach, deserting Mademoiselle Elodie without taking leave of her, as he might have tossed aside a novel he had finished. In half an hour, during which Baron Hulot talked to Lisbeth of nothing but little Atala Judici--for he had fallen by degrees to those base passions that ruin old men--she set him down with two thousand francs in his pocket, in the Rue de Charonne, Faubourg Saint-Antoine, at the door of a doubtful and sinister-looking house. “Good-day, cousin; so now you are to be called Thorec, I suppose? Send none but commissionaires if you need me, and always take them from different parts.” “Trust me! Oh, I am really very lucky!” said the Baron, his face beaming with the prospect of new and future happiness. “No one can find him there,” said Lisbeth; and she paid the coach at the Boulevard Beaumarchais, and returned to the Rue Louis-le-Grand in the omnibus. On the following day Crevel was announced at the hour when all the family were together in the drawing-room, just after breakfast. Celestine flew to throw her arms round her father’s neck, and behaved as if she had seen him only the day before, though in fact he had not called there for more than two years. “Good-morning, father,” said Victorin, offering his hand. “Good-morning, children,” said the pompous Crevel. “Madame la Baronne, I throw myself at your feet! Good Heavens, how the children grow! they are pushing us off the perch--‘Grand-pa,’ they say, ‘we want our turn in the sunshine.’--Madame la Comtesse, you are as lovely as ever,” he went on, addressing Hortense.--“Ah, ha! and here is the best of good money: Cousin Betty, the Wise Virgin.”