CHAPTER XXIV

SIDONIE'S VENGEANCE

Never had Sigismond Planus returned home so late without giving his
sister warning, during the twenty years and more that he had lived at
Montrouge. Consequently Mademoiselle Planus was greatly worried. Living
in community of ideas and of everything else with her brother, having but
one mind for herself and for him, the old maid had felt for several
months the rebound of all the cashier's anxiety and indignation; and the
effect was still noticeable in her tendency to tremble and become
agitated on slight provocation. At the slightest tardiness on
Sigismond's part, she would think:

"Ah! mon Dieu! If only nothing has happened at the factory!"

That is the reason why on the evening in question, when the hens and
chickens were all asleep on their perches, and the dinner had been
removed untouched, Mademoiselle Planus was sitting in the little ground-
floor living-room, waiting, in great agitation.

At last, about eleven o'clock, some one rang. A timid, melancholy ring,
in no wise resembling Sigismond's vigorous pull.

"Is it you, Monsieur Planus?" queried the old lady from behind the door.

It was he; but he was not alone. A tall, bent old man accompanied him,