Justin had gone out searching the
road at random. Monsieur Homais even had left his pharmacy.
At last, at eleven o'clock, able to bear it no longer, Charles
harnessed his chaise, jumped in, whipped up his horse, and reached the
"Croix-Rouge" about two o'clock in the morning. No one there! He thought
that the clerk had perhaps seen her; but where did he live? Happily,
Charles remembered his employer's address, and rushed off there.
Day was breaking, and he could distinguish the escutcheons over the
door, and knocked. Someone, without opening the door, shouted out the
required information, adding a few insults to those who disturb people
in the middle of the night.
The house inhabited by the clerk had neither bell, knocker, nor porter.
Charles knocked loudly at the shutters with his hands. A policeman
happened to pass by. Then he was frightened, and went away.
"I am mad," he said; "no doubt they kept her to dinner at Monsieur
Lormeaux'." But the Lormeaux no longer lived at Rouen.
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