They did not return to Tournebut till August 4th. The same day Soyer received a letter from Mme. Acquet, on the envelope of which she had written, "For Mama." It was an answer to the letter sent to Croissanville by Lefebre. Mme. Acquet said that her mother's departure did her a great wrong, but that all danger was over and Lefebre could return to Falaise without fear. As for herself, she had found refuge with a reliable person; the Abbe Moraud, vicar of Guibray, would take charge of her correspondence. Of the proposal which had been made her to take refuge at Tournebut, not a word. Evidently Mme. Acquet preferred the retreat she had chosen for herself--where, she did not say. Mme. de Combray, either hurt at this unjustifiable defiance, or afraid that she would prove herself an accomplice in the theft if she did not separate herself entirely from Mme. Acquet, made her maid reply that it was "too late for her to come now, that she was very ill and could receive no one." And thus the feeling that divided these two women was clearly defined. Lefebre undertook to give the letter to Abbe Moraud; he was in a great hurry to return to Falaise, where he felt much safer than at Tournebut. He left the same day, after having chosen a yellow horse from the stables of the chateau. He put on top-boots and an overcoat belonging to Bonnoeil, and left by a little door in the wall of the park. Soyer led him as far as the Moulin des Quatre-Vents on the highroad. Lefebre took the Neubourg road so as to avoid Evreux and Louviers. Two days after, he breakfasted at Glatigny with Lanoe, leaving there his boots, overcoat, and the yellow horse, and started gaily for Falaise, where he arrived in the evening. He saw Mme. Acquet on the 7th, and found her completely at her ease. When Lanoe had abandoned her at the farm of Villeneuve, twelve days before, Mme. Acquet had entreated so pitifully that a woman who was there had gone to fetch Collin, one of the servants at La Bijude; Mme. de Combray's daughter had returned with him to Falaise, on one of the farmer's horses. She dared not go to the house in the Rue du Tripot, and therefore stopped with an honest woman named Chauvel, who did the washing for the Combray family. She was drawn there by the fact that the son, Victor Chauvel, was one of the gendarmes who had been at Donnay the night before, and she wanted to find out from him if the Buquets had denounced her.