They were the more terrified since they
divined that Gregoire had not gone off alone. They pieced together the
incidents of the deplorable affair. Charlotte remembered that she had
heard Gregoire go downstairs again, almost immediately after entering his
bedroom, and before the servants had even bolted the house-doors for the
night. He had certainly rushed off to join Therese in some coppice,
whence they must have hurried away to Vieux-Bourg station which the last
train to Paris quitted at five-and-twenty minutes past midnight. And it
was indeed this which had taken place. At noon the Froments already
learnt that Lepailleur was creating a terrible scandal about the flight
of Therese. He had immediately gone to the gendarmes to shout the story
to them, and demand that they should bring the guilty hussy back, chained
to her accomplice, and both of them with gyves about their wrists.
He on his side had found a letter in his daughter's bedroom, a plucky
letter in which she plainly said that as she had been struck again the
previous day, she had had enough of it, and was going off of her own free
will. Indeed, she added that she was taking Gregoire with her, and was
quite big and old enough, now that she was two-and-twenty, to know what
she was about.
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