"Monsieur is very feeble," interposed Mademoiselle Brazier; "just now he was unwilling even to go out in the carriage," she added, turning upon the old man the fixed look with which keepers quell a maniac. Philippe took Flore by the arm, compelling her to look at him, and looking at her in return as fixedly as she had just looked at her victim. "Tell me, mademoiselle," he said, "is it a fact that my uncle is not free to take a walk with me?" "Why, yes he is, monsieur," replied Flore, who was unable to make any other answer. "Very well. Come, uncle. Mademoiselle, give him his hat and cane." "But--he never goes out without me. Do you, monsieur?" "Yes, Philippe, yes; I always want her--" "It would be better to take the carriage," said Flore. "Yes, let us take the carriage," cried the old man, in his anxiety to make his two tyrants agree. "Uncle, you will come with me, alone, and on foot, or I shall never return here; I shall know that the town of Issoudun tells the truth, when it declares you are under the dominion of Mademoiselle Flore Brazier. That my uncle should love you, is all very well," he resumed, holding Flore with a fixed eye; "that you should not love my uncle is also on the cards; but when it comes to your making him unhappy--halt! If people want to get hold of an inheritance, they must earn it. Are you coming, uncle?" Philippe saw the eyes of the poor imbecile roving from himself to Flore, in painful hesitation. "Ha! that's how it is, is it?" resumed the lieutenant-colonel. "Well, adieu, uncle. Mademoiselle, I kiss your hands." He turned quickly when he reached the door, and caught Flore in the act of making a menacing gesture at his uncle. "Uncle," he said, "if you wish to go with me, I will meet you at your door in ten minutes: I am now going to see Monsieur Hochon. If you and I do not take that walk, I shall take upon myself to make some others walk." So saying, he went away, and crossed the place Saint-Jean to the Hochons. Every one can imagine the scenes which the revelations made by Philippe to Monsieur Hochon had brought about within that family. At nine o'clock, old Monsieur Heron, the notary, presented himself with a bundle of papers, and found a fire in the hall which the old miser, contrary to all his habits, had ordered to be lighted. Madame Hochon, already dressed at this unusual hour, was sitting in her armchair at the corner of the fireplace. The two grandsons, warned the night before by Adolphine that a storm was gathering about their heads, had been ordered to stay in the house. Summoned now by Gritte, they were alarmed at the formal preparations of their grandparents, whose coldness and anger they had been made to feel in the air for the last twenty-four hours. "Don't rise for them," said their grandfather to Monsieur Heron; "you see before you two miscreants, unworthy of pardon." "Oh, grandpapa!" said Francois.