“My grandsons! is it possible?” “Watch them,” said Philippe. “You will see them coming home along the place Saint-Jean, at two or three o’clock in the morning, as tipsy as champagne-corks, and in company with Gilet--” “That’s why the scamps keep so sober at home!” cried Monsieur Hochon. “Fario has told me all about their nocturnal proceedings,” resumed Philippe; “without him, I should never have suspected them. My uncle is held down under an absolute thraldom, if I may judge by certain things which the Spaniard has heard Max say to your boys. I suspect Max and the Rabouilleuse of a scheme to make sure of the fifty thousand francs’ income from the Funds, and then, after pulling that feather from their pigeon’s wing, to run away, I don’t know where, and get married. It is high time to know what is going on under my uncle’s roof, but I don’t see how to set about it.” “I will think of it,” said the old man. They separated, for several persons were now approaching. Never, at any time in his life, did Jean-Jacques suffer as he had done since the first visit of his nephew Philippe. Flore was terrified by the presentiment of some evil that threatened Max. Weary of her master, and fearing that he might live to be very old, since he was able to bear up under their criminal practices, she formed the very simple plan of leaving Issoudun and being married to Maxence in Paris, after obtaining from Jean-Jacques the transfer of the income in the Funds. The old bachelor, guided, not by any justice to his family, nor by personal avarice, but solely by his passion, steadily refused to make the transfer, on the ground that Flore was to be his sole heir. The unhappy creature knew to what extent Flore loved Max, and he believed he would be abandoned the moment she was made rich enough to marry. When Flore, after employing the tenderest cajoleries, was unable to succeed, she tried rigor; she no longer spoke to her master; Vedie was sent to wait upon him, and found him in the morning with his eyes swollen and red with weeping. For a week or more, poor Rouget had breakfasted alone, and Heaven knows on what food! The day after Philippe’s conversation with Monsieur Hochon, he determined to pay a second visit to his uncle, whom he found much changed. Flore stayed beside the old man, speaking tenderly and looking at him with much affection; she played the comedy so well that Philippe guessed some immediate danger, merely from the solicitude thus displayed in his presence. Gilet, whose policy it was to avoid all collision with Philippe, did not appear. After watching his uncle and Flore for a time with a discerning eye, the colonel judged that the time had come to strike his grand blow. “Adieu, my dear uncle,” he said, rising as if to leave the house. “Oh! don’t go yet,” cried the old man, who was comforted by Flore’s false tenderness. “Dine with us, Philippe.” “Yes, if you will come and take a walk with me.”