Mme. Prieur was one of the old-fashioned mistresses, who consider that they fill a parent’s place towards their apprentices. They were part of the family; she took them with her to church, and looked scrupulously after them. Henriette Signol was a tall, fine-looking girl, with bold eyes, and long, thick, dark hair, and the pale, very fair complexion of girls in the South--white as a magnolia flower. For which reasons Henriette was one of the first on whom Cérizet cast his eyes; but Henriette came of “honest farmer folk,” and only yielded at last to jealousy, to bad example, and the treacherous promise of subsequent marriage. By this time Cérizet was the Cointet’s foreman. When he learned that the Signols owned a vineyard worth some ten or twelve thousand francs, and a tolerably comfortable cottage, he hastened to make it impossible for Henriette to marry any one else. Affairs had reached this point when Petit-Claud held out the prospect of a printing office and twenty thousand francs of borrowed capital, which was to prove a yoke upon the borrower’s neck. Cérizet was dazzled, the offer turned his head; Henriette Signol was now only an obstacle in the way of his ambitions, and he neglected the poor girl. Henriette, in her despair, clung more closely to her seducer as he tried to shake her off. When Cérizet began to suspect that David was hiding in Basine’s house, his views with regard to Henriette underwent another change, though he treated her as before. A kind of frenzy works in a girl’s brain when she must marry her seducer to conceal her dishonor, and Cérizet was on the watch to turn this madness to his own account. During the morning of the day when Lucien had set himself to reconquer his Louise, Cérizet told Basine’s secret to Henriette, giving her to understand at the same time that their marriage and future prospects depended upon the discovery of David’s hiding-place. Thus instructed, Henriette easily made certain of the fact that David was in Basine Clerget’s inner room. It never occurred to the girl that she was doing wrong to act the spy, and Cérizet involved her in the guilt of betrayal by this first step. Lucien was still sleeping while Cérizet, closeted with Petit-Claud, heard the history of the important trifles with which all Angoulême presently would ring. The Cointets’ foreman gave a satisfied nod as Petit-Claud came to an end. “Lucien surely has written you a line since he came back, has he not?” he asked. “This is all that I have,” answered the lawyer, and he held out a note on Mme. Séchard’s writing-paper. “Very well,” said Cérizet, “let Doublon be in wait at the Palet Gate about ten minutes before sunset; tell him to post his gendarmes, and you shall have our man.” “Are you sure of _your_ part of the business?” asked Petit-Claud, scanning Cérizet. “I rely on chance,” said the ex-street boy, “and she is a saucy huzzy; she does not like honest folk.