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The Captain was to wait at the door of his inn and follow Mme. Acquet when he saw her pass with the gendarme. She only appeared at ten at night, and they walked separately as far as Vaucelles. Langelley kept them waiting, but he arrived at last on a borrowed horse; the Captain had got a post-horse; as for the nephew, Delaitre, and the servant, they had gone back the evening before to Rouen.
The time had come to say good-bye. Mme. Acquet embraced Chauvel who parted from her "in the tenderest manner, enjoining Delaitre to take the greatest care of the precious object confided to him." Langelley, armed with a club for a riding whip, placed himself at the head of the cavalcade, Delaitre warmly wrapping Mme.
Placène one day suggested the enforced disappearance of the baker Lerouge," says Bornet, as he was "very religious and a very good man," she was afraid that if he were arrested, "he would not consent to lie, and would ruin them all." Langelley specially feared the garrulity of Flierlé and Lanoë, in prison at Caen, and he was trying to get them poisoned.
A single idea possessed her: how to find a retreat which would allow of her escaping from Vannier's hateful guardianship; and Langelley, who was very surprised at finding her at the lacemaker's, seeing her perplexity offered to escort her to a country house, about a league from the town, where his father lived.
Langelley, for his part, said that Placène was a rogue and that if "he had already got his share of the plunder, he received at least as much again from the police." The poor woman who formed the pivot of these intrigues was not spared by her unworthy accomplices. Having in mind Joseph Buquet and Chauvel, they all suspected one another of having been her lovers.
Acquet and her sojourn with the Vanniers and Langelley, and it was necessary without divulging Licquet's proceedings to tell of her arrest, he became altogether incomprehensible.
Acquet and her companions entered the narrow passage and went up-stairs to a room on the first floor, where they seated themselves at a table, and Langelley ordered wine and biscuits. The young woman took the Marquise's letter from the Captain's hands; all those around her were silent and watched attentively. They noticed that "she changed colour at every line and sighed."
Licquet fell back with his troop, taking with him Chauvel, Mallet and Langelley, who were soon to be followed by Lanoë, Vannier, Placène and all the Buquets, save Joseph, who had not been seen again. But before starting on his return journey to Rouen, Licquet wished to pay his respects to Count Caffarelli, the Prefect of Calvados, in whose territory he had just been hunting.
They met her a few steps farther down the road in company with Langelley, whom Chauvel introduced to Delaitre. The latter immediately offered his arm to Mme. Acquet: Chauvel, Langelley and the "nephew Delaitre" followed at some distance. They passed the bridge and walked along by the river under the trees of the great promenade, talking all the time. It was now quite dark.
At Caen Delaitre saw again the lawyer Langelley, the Placènes and Monderard's daughter, and they entertained him. He gave them very good news of Mme. Acquet, who, he said, was comfortably settled at a place on the English coast; but although he had a very important letter for Allain, which Mme. de Combray wished him to take to England without delay, the wily Chouan did not show himself.
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