"Because your presence reveals to me that strange things are passing here, so strange that--" "Oh, stuff and nonsense! Give me the key of the lodge! What made you leave it when I was out? I have just come from the office where the diligence starts from for Normandy. I went there in a coach to take M. Bradamanti's trunk, as he did not wish that little rascal, Tortillard, to know anything about it, since, it seems, he had rather no one should be acquainted with the fact of his leaving Paris this evening; and, as for his mistrusting the boy, why, I don't wonder at it." Saying these words, Madame Pipelet took the key from her husband's hand, opened the lodge, and entered it before her partner; but scarcely were they both safe within its dark recesses, than an individual, lightly descending the staircase, passed swiftly and unobserved before the lodge. This personage was Cabrion, who, having managed to steal up-stairs, had so powerfully worked upon the porter's tender susceptibilities. M. Pipelet threw himself into his chair, saying to his wife, in a voice of deep emotion: "Anastasie; I do not feel myself comfortable to-day; strange and mysterious things are going on in this house." "What! Are you going to break out again? What an old fool you are! Why, strange things happen in every house. What has come over you? Come, let's look at you! Well, I declare, you are all of a sweat, just as if you had been dragged out of the water! What have you been doing since I left you? Overexerting yourself, I am sure, and I forbid you ever doing so. La! Look how the great drops pour from him, poor old chick!" "And well they may!" exclaimed M. Pipelet, passing his hand over his face, bathed in its own dew; "well may I sweat,--ay, even blood and water,--for there are facts connected with this house past belief or comprehension. First, you summon me up-stairs, and, at the same moment, I find you waiting below! Oh, it is too, too much for my poor brain!" "Deuce take me, if I can comprehend one word of all you are saying! Lord, help us! It is to be hoped your poor old brain is not cracked. I tell you what, if you go on so, I shall just set you down for cracked; and all through that scamp of a Cabrion,--the devil take him! Ever since that last trick he played the other day, I declare you have not been yourself, so flustered and bewildered! Do you mean to live in fear and dread of that abominable painter all your days?"