“Are you ill, mademoiselle?” he said, but his voice had no gentleness; the very question, the look, the gesture, all served to convince her that the events of this day belonged to a mirage of the soul which was fast disappearing like mists before the wind.

“Am I ill?” she replied, with a forced laugh. “I was going to ask you the same question.”

“I supposed you understood each other,” remarked Madame du Gua with specious kindliness.

Neither the young man nor Mademoiselle de Verneuil replied. The girl, doubly insulted, was angered at feeling her powerful beauty powerless. She knew she could discover the cause of the present situation the moment she chose to do so; but, for the first time, perhaps, a woman recoiled before a secret. Human life is sadly fertile in situations where, as a result of either too much meditation or of some catastrophe, our thoughts seem to hold to nothing; they have no substance, no point of departure, and the present has no hooks by which to hold to the past or fasten on the future. This was Mademoiselle de Verneuil’s condition at the present moment. Leaning back in the carriage, she sat there like an uprooted shrub. Silent and suffering, she looked at no one, wrapped herself in her grief, and buried herself so completely in the unseen world, the refuge of the miserable, that she saw nothing around her. Crows crossed the road in the air above them cawing, but although, like all strong hearts, hers had a superstitious corner, she paid no attention to the omen. The party travelled on in silence. “Already parted?” Mademoiselle de Verneuil was saying to herself. “Yet no one about us has uttered one word. Could it be Corentin? It is not his interest to speak. Who can have come to this spot and accused me? Just loved, and already abandoned! I sow attraction, and I reap contempt. Is it my perpetual fate to see happiness and ever lose it?” Pangs hitherto unknown to her wrung her heart, for she now loved truly and for the first time. Yet she had not so wholly delivered herself to her lover that she could not take refuge from her pain in the natural pride and dignity of a young and beautiful woman. The secret of her love—a secret often kept by women under torture itself—had not escaped her lips. Presently she rose from her reclining attitude, ashamed that she had shown her passion by her silent sufferings; she shook her head with a light-hearted action, and showed a face, or rather a mask, that was gay and smiling, then she raised her voice to disguise the quiver of it.

“Where are we?” she said to Captain Merle, who kept himself at a certain distance from the carriage.

“About six miles from Fougeres, mademoiselle.”

“We shall soon be there, shall we not?” she went on, to encourage a conversation in which she might show some preference for the young captain.

“A Breton mile,” said Merle much delighted, “has the disadvantage of never ending; when you are at the top of one hill you see a valley and another hill. When you reach the summit of the slope we are now ascending you will see the plateau of Mont Pelerine in the distance. Let us hope the Chouans won’t take their revenge there. Now, in going up hill and going down hill one doesn’t make much headway. From La Pelerine you will still see—”

The young emigre made a movement at the name which Marie alone noticed.

“What is La Pelerine?” she asked hastily, interrupting the captain’s description of Breton topography.

“It is the summit of a mountain,” said Merle, “which gives its name to the Maine valley through which we shall presently pass. It separates this valley from that of Couesnon, at the end of which is the town of Fougeres, the chief town in Brittany. We had a fight there last Vendemiaire with the Gars and his brigands. We were escorting Breton conscripts, who meant to kill us sooner than leave their own land; but Hulot is a rough Christian, and he gave them—”

“Did you see the Gars?” she asked. “What sort of man is he?”

Her keen, malicious eyes never left the so-called vicomte’s face.

“Well, mademoiselle,” replied Merle, nettled at being always interrupted, “he is so like citizen du Gua, that if your friend did not wear the uniform of the Ecole Polytechnique I could swear it was he.”

Mademoiselle de Verneuil looked fixedly at the cold, impassible young man who had scorned her, but she saw nothing in him that betrayed the slightest feeling of alarm. She warned him by a bitter smile that she had now discovered the secret so treacherously kept; then in a jesting voice, her nostrils dilating with pleasure, and her head so turned that she could watch the young man and yet see Merle, she said to the Republican: “That new leader gives a great deal of anxiety to the First Consul. He is very daring, they say; but he has the weakness of rushing headlong into adventures, especially with women.”

“We are counting on that to get even with him,” said the captain. “If we catch him for only an hour we shall put a bullet in his head. He’ll do the same to us if he meets us, so par pari—”

“Oh!” said the emigre, “we have nothing to fear. Your soldiers cannot go as far as La Pelerine, they are tired, and, if you consent, we can all rest a short distance from here. My mother stops at La Vivetiere, the road to which turns off a few rods farther on. These ladies might like to stop there too; they must be tired with their long drive from Alencon without resting; and as mademoiselle,” he added, with forced politeness, “has had the generosity to give safety as well as pleasure to our journey, perhaps she will deign to accept a supper from my mother; and I think, captain,” he added, addressing Merle, “the times are not so bad but what we can find a barrel of cider for your men. The Gars can’t have taken all, at least my mother thinks not—”

“Your mother?” said Mademoiselle de Verneuil, interrupting him in a tone of irony, and making no reply to his invitation.

“Does my age seem more improbable to you this evening, mademoiselle?” said Madame du Gua. “Unfortunately I was married very young, and my son was born when I was fifteen.”

“Are you not mistaken, madame?—when you were thirty, perhaps.”

Madame du Gua turned livid as she swallowed the sarcasm. She would have liked to revenge herself on the spot, but was forced to smile, for she was determined at any cost, even that of insult, to discover the nature of the feelings that actuated the young girl; she therefore pretended not to have understood her.

“The Chouans have never had a more cruel leader than the Gars, if we are to believe the stories about him,” she said, addressing herself vaguely to both Francine and her mistress.

“Oh, as for cruel, I don’t believe that,” said Mademoiselle de Verneuil; “he knows how to lie, but he seems rather credulous himself. The leader of a party ought not to be the plaything of others.”

“Do you know him?” asked the emigre, quietly.

“No,” she replied, with a disdainful glance, “but I thought I did.”

“Oh, mademoiselle, he’s a malin, yes a malin,” said Captain Merle, shaking his head and giving with an expressive gesture the peculiar meaning to the word which it had in those days but has since lost. “Those old families do sometimes send out vigorous shoots. He has just returned from a country where, they say, the ci-devants didn’t find life too easy, and men ripen like medlars in the straw. If that fellow is really clever he can lead us a pretty dance. He has already formed companies of light infantry who oppose our troops and neutralize the efforts of the government. If we burn a royalist village he burns two of ours. He can hold an immense tract of country and force us to spread out our men at the very moment when we want them on one spot. Oh, he knows what he is about.”

“He is cutting his country’s throat,” said Gerard in a loud voice, interrupting the captain.

“Then,” said the emigre, “if his death would deliver the nation, why don’t you catch him and shoot him?”

As he spoke he tried to look into the depths of Mademoiselle de Verneuil’s soul, and one of those voiceless scenes the dramatic vividness and fleeting sagacity of which cannot be reproduced in language passed between them in a flash. Danger is always interesting. The worst criminal threatened with death excites pity. Though Mademoiselle de Verneuil was now certain that the lover who had cast her off was this very leader of the Chouans, she was not ready to verify her suspicions by giving him up; she had quite another curiosity to satisfy. She preferred to doubt or to believe as her passion led her, and she now began deliberately to play with peril. Her eyes, full of scornful meaning, bade the young chief notice the soldiers of the escort; by thus presenting to his mind triumphantly an image of his danger she made him feel that his life depended on a word from her, and her lips seemed to quiver on the verge of pronouncing it. Like an American Indian, she watched every muscle of the face of her enemy, tied, as it were, to the stake, while she brandished her tomahawk gracefully, enjoying a revenge that was still innocent, and torturing like a mistress who still loves.

“If I had a son like yours, madame,” she said to Madame du Gua, who was visibly frightened, “I should wear mourning from the day when I had yielded him to danger; I should know no peace of mind.”

No answer was made to this speech. She turned her head repeatedly to the escort and then suddenly to Madame du Gua, without detecting the slightest secret signal between the lady and the Gars which might have confirmed her suspicions on the nature of their intimacy, which she longed to doubt. The young chief calmly smiled, and bore without flinching the scrutiny she forced him to undergo; his attitude and the expression of his face were those of a man indifferent to danger; he even seemed to say at times: “This is your chance to avenge your wounded vanity—take it! I have no desire to lessen my contempt for you.”

Mademoiselle de Verneuil began to study the young man from the vantage-ground of her position with coolness and dignity; at the bottom of her heart she admired his courage and tranquillity. Happy in discovering that the man she loved bore an ancient title (the distinctions of which please every woman), she also found pleasure in meeting him in their present situation, where, as champion of a cause ennobled by misfortune, he was fighting with all the faculties of a strong soul against a Republic that was constantly victorious. She rejoiced to see him brought face to face with danger, and still displaying the courage and bravery so powerful on a woman’s heart; again and again she put him to the test, obeying perhaps the instinct which induces a woman to play with her victim as a cat plays with a mouse.

“By virtue of what law do you put the Chouans to death?” she said to Merle.

“That of the 14th of last Fructidor, which outlaws the insurgent departments and proclaims martial law,” replied the Republican.

“May I ask why I have the honor to attract your eyes?” she said presently to the young chief, who was attentively watching her.

“Because of a feeling which a man of honor cannot express to any woman, no matter who she is,” replied the Marquis de Montauran, in a low voice, bending down to her. “We live in times,” he said aloud, “when women do the work of the executioner and wield the axe with even better effect.”

She looked at de Montauran fixedly; then, delighted to be attacked by the man whose life she held in her hands, she said in a low voice, smiling softly: “Your head is a very poor one; the executioner does not want it; I shall keep it myself.”

The marquis looked at the inexplicable girl, whose love had overcome all, even insult, and who now avenged herself by forgiving that which women are said never to forgive. His eyes grew less stern, less cold; a look of sadness came upon his face. His love was stronger than he suspected. Mademoiselle de Verneuil, satisfied with these faint signs of a desired reconciliation, glanced at him tenderly, with a smile that was like a kiss; then she leaned back once more in the carriage, determined not to risk the future of this happy drama, believing she had assured it with her smile. She was so beautiful! She knew so well how to conquer all obstacles to love! She was so accustomed to take all risks and push on at all hazards! She loved the unexpected, and the tumults of life—why should she fear?

Before long the carriage, under the young chief’s directions, left the highway and took a road cut between banks planted with apple-trees, more like a ditch than a roadway, which led to La Vivetiere. The carriage now advanced rapidly, leaving the escort to follow slowly towards the manor-house, the gray roofs of which appeared and disappeared among the trees. Some of the men lingered on the way to knock the stiff clay of the road-bed from their shoes.

“This is devilishly like the road to Paradise,” remarked Beau-Pied.

Thanks to the impatience of the postilion, Mademoiselle de Verneuil soon saw the chateau of La Vivetiere. This house, standing at the end of a sort of promontory, was protected and surrounded by two deep lakelets, and could be reached only by a narrow causeway. That part of the little peninsula on which the house and gardens were placed was still further protected by a moat filled with water from the two lakes which it connected. The house really stood on an island that was well-nigh impregnable,—an invaluable retreat for a chieftain, who could be surprised there only by treachery.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil put her head out of the carriage as she heard the rusty hinges of the great gates open to give entrance to an arched portal which had been much injured during the late war. The gloomy colors of the scene which met her eyes almost extinguished the thoughts of love and coquetry in which she had been indulging. The carriage entered a large courtyard that was nearly square, bordered on each side by the steep banks of the lakelets. Those sterile shores, washed by water, which was covered with large green patches, had no other ornament than aquatic trees devoid of foliage, the twisted trunks and hoary heads of which, rising from the reeds and rushes, gave them a certain grotesque likeness to gigantic marmosets. These ugly growths seemed to waken and talk to each other when the frogs deserted them with much croaking, and the water-fowl, startled by the sound of the wheels, flew low upon the surface of the pools. The courtyard, full of rank and seeded grasses, reeds, and shrubs, either dwarf or parasite, excluded all impression of order or of splendor. The house appeared to have been long abandoned. The roof seemed to bend beneath the weight of the various vegetations which grew upon it. The walls, though built of the smooth, slaty stone which abounds in that region, showed many rifts and chinks where ivy had fastened its rootlets. Two main buildings, joined at the angle by a tall tower which faced the lake, formed the whole of the chateau, the doors and swinging, rotten shutters, rusty balustrades, and broken windows of which seemed ready to fall at the first tempest. The north wind whistled through these ruins, to which the moon, with her indefinite light, gave the character and outline of a great spectre. But the colors of those gray-blue granites, mingling with the black and tawny schists, must have been seen in order to understand how vividly a spectral image was suggested by the empty and gloomy carcass of the building. Its disjointed stones and paneless windows, the battered tower and broken roofs gave it the aspect of a skeleton; the birds of prey which flew from it, shrieking, added another feature to this vague resemblance. A few tall pine-trees standing behind the house waved their dark foliage above the roof, and several yews cut into formal shapes at the angles of the building, festooned it gloomily like the ornaments on a hearse. The style of the doors, the coarseness of the decorations, the want of harmony in the architecture, were all characteristic of the feudal manors of which Brittany was proud; perhaps justly proud, for they maintained upon that Gaelic ground a species of monumental history of the nebulous period which preceded the establishment of the French monarchy.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil, to whose imagination the word “chateau” brought none but its conventional ideas, was affected by the funereal aspect of the scene. She sprang from the carriage and stood apart gazing at in terror, and debating within herself what action she ought to take. Francine heard Madame du Gua give a sigh of relief as she felt herself in safety beyond reach of the Blues; an exclamation escaped her when the gates were closed, and she saw the carriage and its occupants within the walls of this natural fortress.

The Marquis de Montauran turned hastily to Mademoiselle de Verneuil, divining the thoughts that crowded in her mind.

“This chateau,” he said, rather sadly, “was ruined by the war, just as my plans for our happiness have been ruined by you.”

“How ruined?” she asked in surprise.

“Are you indeed ‘beautiful, brilliant, and of noble birth’?” he asked ironically, repeating the words she had herself used in their former conversation.

“Who has told you to the contrary?”

“Friends, in whom I put faith; who care for my safety and are on the watch against treachery.”

“Treachery!” she exclaimed, in a sarcastic tone. “Have you forgotten Hulot and Alencon already? You have no memory,—a dangerous defect in the leader of a party. But if friends,” she added, with increased sarcasm, “are so all-powerful in your heart, keep your friends. Nothing is comparable to the joys of friendship. Adieu; neither I nor the soldiers of the Republic will stop here.”

She turned towards the gateway with a look of wounded pride and scorn, and her motions as she did so displayed a dignity and also a despair which changed in an instant the thoughts of the young man; he felt that the cost of relinquishing his desires was too great, and he gave himself up deliberately to imprudence and credulity. He loved; and the lovers had no desire now to quarrel with each other.

“Say but one word and I will believe you,” he said, in a supplicating voice.

“One word?” she answered, closing her lips tightly, “not a single word; not even a gesture.”

“At least, be angry with me,” he entreated, trying to take the hand she withheld from him,—“that is, if you dare to be angry with the leader of the rebels, who is now as sad and distrustful as he was lately happy and confiding.”

Marie gave him a look that was far from angry, and he added: “You have my secret, but I have not yours.”

The alabaster brow appeared to darken at these words; she cast a look of annoyance on the young chieftain, and answered, hastily: “Tell you my secret? Never!”

In love every word, every glance has the eloquence of the moment; but on this occasion Mademoiselle de Verneuil’s exclamation revealed nothing, and, clever as Montauran might be, its secret was impenetrable to him, though the tones of her voice betrayed some extraordinary and unusual emotion which piqued his curiosity.

“You have a singular way of dispelling suspicion,” he said.

“Do you still suspect me?” she replied, looking him in the eye, as if to say, “What rights have you over me?”

“Mademoiselle,” said the young man, in a voice that was submissive and yet firm, “the authority you exercise over Republican troops, this escort—”

“Ah, that reminds me! My escort and I,” she asked, in a slightly satirical tone, “your protectors, in short,—will they be safe here?”

“Yes, on the word of a gentleman. Whoever you be, you and your party have nothing to fear in my house.”

The promise was made with so loyal and generous an air and manner that Mademoiselle de Verneuil felt absolutely secure as to the safety of the Republican soldiers. She was about to speak when Madame du Gua’s approach silenced her. That lady had either overheard or guessed part of their conversation, and was filled with anxiety at no longer perceiving any signs of animosity between them. As soon as the marquis caught sight of her, he offered his hand to Mademoiselle de Verneuil and led her hastily towards the house, as if to escape an undesired companion.

“I am in their way,” thought Madame du Gua, remaining where she was. She watched the lovers walking slowly towards the portico, where they stopped, as if satisfied to have placed some distance between themselves and her. “Yes, yes, I am in their way,” she repeated, speaking to herself; “but before long that creature will not be in mine; the lake, God willing, shall have her. I’ll help him keep his word as a gentleman; once under the water, she has nothing to fear,—what can be safer than that?”

She was looking fixedly at the still mirror of the little lake to the right when suddenly she heard a rustling among the rushes and saw in the moonlight the face of Marche-a-Terre rising behind the gnarled trunk of an old willow. None but those who knew the Chouan well could have distinguished him from the tangle of branches of which he seemed a part. Madame du Gua looked about her with some distrust; she saw the postilion leading his horses to a stable in the wing of the chateau which was opposite to the bank where Marche-a-Terre was hiding; Francine, with her back to her, was going towards the two lovers, who at that moment had forgotten the whole earth. Madame du Gua, with a finger on her lip to demand silence, walked towards the Chouan, who guessed rather than heard her question, “How many of you are here?”

“Eighty-seven.”

“They are sixty-five; I counted them.”

“Good,” said the savage, with sullen satisfaction.

Attentive to all Francine’s movements, the Chouan disappeared behind the willow, as he saw her turn to look for the enemy over whom she was keeping an instinctive watch.

Six or eight persons, attracted by the noise of the carriage-wheels, came out on the portico, shouting: “It is the Gars! it is he; here he is!” On this several other men ran out, and their coming interrupted the lovers. The Marquis de Montauran went hastily up to them, making an imperative gesture for silence, and pointing to the farther end of the causeway, where the Republican escort was just appearing. At the sight of the well-known blue uniforms with red facings, and the glittering bayonets, the amazed conspirators called out hastily, “You have surely not betrayed us?”

“If I had, I should not warn you,” said the marquis, smiling bitterly. “Those Blues,” he added, after a pause, “are the escort of this young lady, whose generosity has delivered us, almost miraculously, from a danger we were in at Alencon. I will tell you about it later. Mademoiselle and her escort are here in safety, on my word as a gentleman, and we must all receive them as friends.”

Madame du Gua and Francine were now on the portico; the marquis offered his hand to Mademoiselle de Verneuil, the group of gentlemen parted in two lines to allow them to pass, endeavoring, as they did so, to catch sight of the young lady’s features; for Madame du Gua, who was following behind, excited their curiosity by secret signs.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil saw, with surprise, that a large table was set in the first hall, for about twenty guests. The dining-room opened into a vast salon, where the whole party were presently assembled. These rooms were in keeping with the dilapidated appearance of the outside of the house. The walnut panels, polished by age, but rough and coarse in design and badly executed, were loose in their places and ready to fall. Their dingy color added to the gloom of these apartments, which were barren of curtains and mirrors; a few venerable bits of furniture in the last stages of decay alone remained, and harmonized with the general destruction. Marie noticed maps and plans stretched out upon long tables, and in the corners of the room a quantity of weapons and stacked carbines. These things bore witness, though she did not know it, to an important conference between the leaders of the Vendeans and those of the Chouans.

The marquis led Mademoiselle de Verneuil to a large and worm-eaten armchair placed beside the fireplace; Francine followed and stood behind her mistress, leaning on the back of that ancient bit of furniture.

“You will allow me for a moment to play the part of master of the house,” he said, leaving the two women and mingling with the groups of his other guests.

Francine saw the gentlemen hasten, after a few words from Montauran, to hide their weapons, maps, and whatever else might arouse the suspicions of the Republican officers. Some took off their broad leather belts containing pistols and hunting-knives. The marquis requested them to show the utmost prudence, and went himself to see to the reception of the troublesome guests whom fate had bestowed upon him.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who had raised her feet to the fire and was now warming them, did not turn her head as Montauran left the room, thus disappointing those present, who were anxious to see her. Francine alone saw the change produced upon the company by the departure of the young chief. The gentlemen gathered hastily round Madame du Gua, and during a conversation carried on in an undertone between them, they all turned several times to look curiously at the stranger.

“You know Montauran,” Madame du Gua said to them; “he has fallen in love with that worthless girl, and, as you can easily understand, he thinks all my warnings selfish. Our friends in Paris, Messieurs de Valois and d’Esgrignon, have warned him of a trap set for him by throwing some such creature at his head; but in spite of this he allows himself to be fooled by the first woman he meets,—a girl who, if my information is correct, has stolen a great name only to disgrace it.”

The speaker, in whom our readers have already recognized the lady who instigated the attack on the “turgotine,” may be allowed to keep the name which she used to escape the dangers that threatened her in Alencon. The publication of her real name would only mortify a noble family already deeply afflicted at the misconduct of this woman; whose history, by the bye, has already been given on another scene.

The curiosity manifested by the company of men soon became impertinent and almost hostile. A few harsh words reached Francine’s ear, and after a word said to her mistress the girl retreated into the embrasure of a window. Marie rose, turned towards the insolent group, and gave them a look full of dignity and even disdain. Her beauty, the elegance of her manners, and her pride changed the behavior of her enemies, and won her the flattering murmur which escaped their lips. Two or three men, whose outward appearance seemed to denote the habits of polite society and the gallantry acquired in courts, came towards her; but her propriety of demeanor forced them to respect her, and none dared speak to her; so that, instead of being herself arraigned by the company, it was she who appeared to judge of them. These chiefs of a war undertaken for God and the king bore very little resemblance to the portraits her fancy had drawn of them. The struggle, really great in itself, shrank to mean proportions as she observed these provincial noblemen, all, with one or two vigorous exceptions, devoid of significance and virility. Having made to herself a poem of such heroes, Marie suddenly awakened to the truth. Their faces expressed to her eyes more a love of scheming than a love of glory; self-interest had evidently put arms into their hands. Still, it must be said that these men did become heroic when brought into action. The loss of her illusions made Mademoiselle de Verneuil unjust, and prevented her from recognizing the real devotion which rendered several of these men remarkable. It is true that most of those now present were commonplace. A few original and marked faces appeared among them, but even these were belittled by the artificiality and the etiquette of aristocracy. If Marie generously granted intellect and perception to the latter, she also discerned in them a total absence of the simplicity, the grandeur, to which she had been accustomed among the triumphant men of the Republic. This nocturnal assemblage in the old ruined castle made her smile; the scene seemed symbolic of the monarchy. But the thought came to her with delight that the marquis at least played a noble part among these men, whose only remaining merit in her eyes was devotion to a lost cause. She pictured her lover’s face upon the background of this company, rejoicing to see it stand forth among those paltry and puny figures who were but the instruments of his great designs.

The footsteps of the marquis were heard in the adjoining room. Instantly the company separated into little groups and the whisperings ceased. Like schoolboys who have plotted mischief in the master’s absence, they hurriedly became silent and orderly. Montauran entered. Marie had the happiness of admiring him among his fellows, of whom he was the youngest, the handsomest, and the chief. Like a king in his court, he went from group to group, distributing looks and nods and words of encouragement or warning, with pressure of the hands and smiles; doing his duty as leader of a party with a grace and self-possession hardly to be expected in the young man whom Marie had so lately accused of heedlessness.

The presence of the marquis put an end to the open curiosity bestowed on Mademoiselle de Verneuil, but Madame du Gua’s scandalous suggestions bore fruit. The Baron du Guenic, familiarly called “l’Intime,” who by rank and name had the best right among those present to treat Montauran familiarly, took the young leader by the arm and led him apart.

“My dear marquis,” he said; “we are much disturbed at seeing you on the point of committing an amazing folly.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Do you know where that girl comes from, who she is, and what her schemes about you are?”

“Don’t trouble yourself, my dear Intime; between you and me my fancy for her will be over to-morrow.”

“Yes; but suppose that creature betrays you to-night?”

“I’ll answer that when you tell me why she has not done it already,” said Montauran, assuming with a laugh an air of conceit. “My dear fellow, look at that charming girl, watch her manners, and dare to tell me she is not a woman of distinction. If she gave you a few favorable looks wouldn’t you feel at the bottom of your soul a respect for her? A certain lady has prejudiced you. I will tell you this: if she were the lost creature our friends are trying to make her out, I would, after what she and I have said to each other, kill her myself.”

“Do you suppose,” said Madame du Gua, joining them, “that Fouche is fool enough to send you a common prostitute out of the streets? He has provided seductions according to your deserts. You may choose to be blind, but your friends are keeping their eyes open to protect you.”

“Madame,” replied the Gars, his eyes flashing with anger, “be warned; take no steps against that lady, nor against her escort; if you do, nothing shall save you from my vengeance. I choose that Mademoiselle de Verneuil is to be treated with the utmost respect, and as a lady belonging to my family. We are, I believe, related to the de Verneuils.”

The opposition the marquis was made to feel produced the usual effect of such obstacles on all young men. Though he had, apparently, treated Mademoiselle de Verneuil rather lightly, and left it to be supposed that his passion for her was a mere caprice, he now, from a feeling of pride, made immense strides in his relation to her. By openly protecting her, his honor became concerned in compelling respect to her person; and he went from group to group assuring his friends, in the tone of a man whom it was dangerous to contradict, that the lady was really Mademoiselle de Verneuil. The doubts and gossip ceased at once. As soon as Montauran felt that harmony was restored and anxiety allayed, he returned to his mistress eagerly, saying in a low voice:—

“Those mischievous people have robbed me of an hour’s happiness.”

“I am glad you have come back to me,” she said, smiling. “I warn you that I am inquisitive; therefore you must not get tired of my questions. Tell me, in the first place, who is that worthy in a green cloth jacket?”

“That is the famous Major Brigaut, a man from the Marais, a comrade of the late Mercier, called La Vendee.”

“And that fat priest with the red face to whom he is talking at this moment about me?” she went on.

“Do you want to know what they are saying?”

“Do I want to know it? What a useless question!”

“But I could not tell it without offending you.”

“If you allow me to be insulted in your house without avenging me, marquis, adieu!” she said. “I will not stay another moment. I have some qualms already about deceiving these poor Republicans, loyal and confiding as they are!”

She made a few hasty steps; the marquis followed her.

“Dear Marie, listen to me. On my honor, I have silenced their evil speaking, without knowing whether it was false or true. But, placed as I am, if friends whom we have in all the ministries in Paris warn me to beware of every woman I meet, and assure me that Fouche has employed against me a Judith of the streets, it is not unnatural that my best friends here should think you too beautiful to be an honest woman.”

As he spoke the marquis plunged a glance into Mademoiselle de Verneuil’s eyes. She colored, and was unable to restrain her tears.

“I deserve these insults,” she said. “I wish you really thought me that despicable creature and still loved me; then, indeed, I could no longer doubt you. I believed in you when you were deceiving me, and you will not believe me now when I am true. Let us make an end of this, monsieur,” she said, frowning, but turning pale as death,—“adieu!”

She rushed towards the dining-room with a movement of despair.

“Marie, my life is yours,” said the young marquis in her ear.

She stopped short and looked at him.

“No, no,” she said, “I will be generous. Farewell. In coming with you here I did not think of my past nor of your future—I was beside myself.”

“You cannot mean that you will leave me now when I offer you my life?”

“You offer it in a moment of passion—of desire.”

“I offer it without regret, and forever,” he replied.

She returned to the room they had left. Hiding his emotions the marquis continued the conversation.

“That fat priest whose name you asked is the Abbe Gudin, a Jesuit, obstinate enough—perhaps I ought to say devoted enough,—to remain in France in spite of the decree of 1793, which banished his order. He is the firebrand of the war in these regions and a propagandist of the religious association called the Sacre-Coeur. Trained to use religion as an instrument, he persuades his followers that if they are killed they will be brought to life again, and he knows how to rouse their fanaticism by shrewd sermons. You see, it is necessary to work upon every man’s selfish interests to attain a great end. That is the secret of all political success.”

“And that vigorous, muscular old man, with the repulsive face, who is he? I mean the one in the ragged gown of a barrister.”

“Barrister! he aspires to be considered a brigadier-general. Did you never hear of de Longuy?”

“Is that he!” exclaimed Mademoiselle de Verneuil, horrified. “You employ such men as that?”

“Hush! he’ll hear you. Do you see that other man in malignant conversation with Madame du Gua?”

“The one in black who looks like a judge?”

“That is one of our go-betweens, La Billardiere, son of a councillor to the Breton Parliament, whose real name is something like Flamet; he is in close correspondence with the princes.”

“And his neighbor? the one who is just putting up his white clay pipe, and uses all the fingers of his right hand to snap the box, like a countryman.”

“By Jove, you are right; he was game-keeper to the deceased husband of that lady, and now commands one of the companies I send against the Republican militia. He and Marche-a-Terre are the two most conscientious vassals the king has here.”

“But she—who is she?”

“Charette’s last mistress,” replied the marquis. “She wields great influence over all these people.”

“Is she faithful to his memory?”

For all answer the marquis gave a dubious smile.

“Do you think well of her?”

“You are very inquisitive.”

“She is my enemy because she can no longer be my rival,” said Mademoiselle de Verneuil, laughing. “I forgive her her past errors if she forgives mine. Who is that officer with the long moustache?”

“Permit me not to name him; he wants to get rid of the First Consul by assassination. Whether he succeeds or not you will hear of him. He is certain to become famous.”

“And you have come here to command such men as these!” she exclaimed in horror. “Are they they king’s defenders? Where are the gentlemen and the great lords?”

“Where?” said the marquis, coolly, “they are in all the courts of Europe. Who else should win over kings and cabinets and armies to serve the Bourbon cause and hurl them at that Republic which threatens monarchies and social order with death and destruction?”

“Ah!” she said, with generous emotion, “be to me henceforth the source from which I draw the ideas I must still acquire about your cause—I consent. But let me still remember that you are the only noble who does his duty in fighting France with Frenchmen, without the help of foreigners. I am a woman; I feel that if my child struck me in anger I could forgive him; but if he saw me beaten by a stranger, and consented to it, I should regard him as a monster.”

“You shall remain a Republican,” said the marquis, in the ardor produced by the generous words which confirmed his hopes.

“Republican! no, I am that no longer. I could not now respect you if you submitted to the First Consul,” she replied. “But neither do I like to see you at the head of men who are pillaging a corner of France, instead of making war against the whole Republic. For whom are you fighting? What do you expect of a king restored to his throne by your efforts? A woman did that great thing once, and the liberated king allowed her to be burned. Such men are the anointed of the Lord, and there is danger in meddling with sacred things. Let God take care of his own, and place, displace, and replace them on their purple seats. But if you have counted the cost, and seen the poor return that will come to you, you are tenfold greater in my eyes than I thought you—”

“Ah! you are bewitching. Don’t attempt to indoctrinate my followers, or I shall be left without a man.”

“If you would let me convert you, only you,” she said, “we might live happily a thousand leagues away from all this.”

“These men whom you seem to despise,” said the marquis, in a graver tone, “will know how to die when the struggle comes, and all their misdeeds will be forgotten. Besides, if my efforts are crowned with some success, the laurel leaves of victory will hide all.”

“I see no one but you who is risking anything.”

“You are mistaken; I am not the only one,” he replied, with true modesty. “See, over there, the new leaders from La Vendee. The first, whom you must have heard of as ‘Le Grand Jacques,’ is the Comte de Fontain; the other is La Billardiere, whom I mentioned to you just now.”

“Have you forgotten Quiberon, where La Billardiere played so equivocal a part?” she said, struck by a sudden recollection.

“La Billardiere took a great deal upon himself. Serving princes is far from lying on a bed of roses.”

“Ah! you make me shudder!” cried Marie. “Marquis,” she continued, in a tone which seemed to indicate some mysterious personal reticence, “a single instant suffices to destroy illusions and to betray secrets on which the life and happiness of many may depend—” she stopped, as though she feared she had said too much; then she added, in another tone, “I wish I could be sure that those Republican soldiers were in safety.”

“I will be prudent,” he said, smiling to disguise his emotion; “but say no more about your soldiers; have I not answered for their safety on my word as a gentleman?”

“And after all,” she said, “what right have I to dictate to you? Be my master henceforth. Did I not tell you it would drive me to despair to rule a slave?”

“Monsieur le marquis,” said Major Brigaut, respectfully, interrupting the conversation, “how long are the Blues to remain here?”

“They will leave as soon as they are rested,” said Marie.

The marquis looked about the room and noticed the agitation of those present. He left Mademoiselle de Verneuil, and his place beside her was taken at once by Madame du Gua, whose smiling and treacherous face was in no way disconcerted by the young chief’s bitter smile. Just then Francine, standing by the window, gave a stifled cry. Marie, noticing with amazement that the girl left the room, looked at Madame du Gua, and her surprise increased as she saw the pallor on the face of her enemy. Anxious to discover the meaning of Francine’s abrupt departure, she went to the window, where Madame du Gua followed her, no doubt to guard against any suspicions which might arise in her mind. They returned together to the chimney, after each had cast a look upon the shore and the lake,—Marie without seeing anything that could have caused Francine’s flight, Madame du Gua seeing that which satisfied her she was being obeyed.

The lake, at the edge of which Marche-a-Terre had shown his head, where Madame du Gua had seen him, joined the moat in misty curves, sometimes broad as ponds, in other places narrow as the artificial streamlets of a park. The steep bank, washed by its waters, lay a few rods from the window. Francine, watching on the surface of the water the black lines thrown by the willows, noticed, carelessly at first, the uniform trend of their branches, caused by a light breeze then prevailing. Suddenly she thought she saw against the glassy surface a figure moving with the spontaneous and irregular motion of life. The form, vague as it was, seemed to her that of a man. At first she attributed what she saw to the play of the moonlight upon the foliage, but presently a second head appeared, then several others in the distance. The shrubs upon the bank were bent and then violently straightened, and Francine saw the long hedge undulating like one of those great Indian serpents of fabulous size and shape. Here and there, among the gorse and taller brambles, points of light could be seen to come and go. The girl’s attention redoubled, and she thought she recognized the foremost of the dusky figures; indistinct as its outlines were, the beating of her heart convinced her it was no other than her lover, Marche-a-Terre. Eager to know if this mysterious approach meant treachery, she ran to the courtyard. When she reached the middle of its grass plot she looked alternately at the two wings of the building and along the steep shores, without discovering, on the inhabited side of the house, any sign of this silent approach. She listened attentively and heard a slight rustling, like that which might be made by the footfalls of some wild animal in the silence of the forest. She quivered, but did not tremble. Though young and innocent, her anxious curiosity suggested a ruse. She saw the coach and slipped into it, putting out her head to listen, with the caution of a hare giving ear to the sound of the distant hunters. She saw Pille-Miche come out of the stable, accompanied by two peasants, all three carrying bales of straw; these they spread on the ground in a way to form a long bed of litter before the inhabited wing of the house, parallel with the bank, bordered by dwarf trees.

“You’re spreading straw as if you thought they’d sleep here! Enough, Pille-Miche, enough!” said a low, gruff voice, which Francine recognized.

“And won’t they sleep here?” returned Pille-Miche with a laugh. “I’m afraid the Gars will be angry!” he added, too low for Francine to hear.

“Well, let him,” said Marche-a-Terre, in the same tone, “we shall have killed the Blues anyway. Here’s that coach, which you and I had better put up.”

Pille-Miche pulled the carriage by the pole and Marche-a-Terre pushed it by one of the wheels with such force that Francine was in the barn and about to be locked up before she had time to reflect on her situation. Pille-Miche went out to fetch the barrel of cider, which the marquis had ordered for the escort; and Marche-a-Terre was passing along the side of the coach, to leave the barn and close the door, when he was stopped by a hand which caught and held the long hair of his goatskin. He recognized a pair of eyes the gentleness of which exercised a power of magnetism over him, and he stood stock-still for a moment under their spell. Francine sprang from the carriage, and said, in the nervous tone of an excited woman: “Pierre, what news did you give to that lady and her son on the road? What is going on here? Why are you hiding? I must know all.”

These words brought a look on the Chouan’s face which Francine had never seen there before. The Breton led his innocent mistress to the door; there he turned her towards the blanching light of the moon, and answered, as he looked in her face with terrifying eyes: “Yes, by my damnation, Francine, I will tell you, but not until you have sworn on these beads (and he pulled an old chaplet from beneath his goatskin)—on this relic, which you know well,” he continued, “to answer me truly one question.”

Francine colored as she saw the chaplet, which was no doubt a token of their love. “It was on that,” he added, much agitated, “that you swore—”

He did not finish the sentence. The young girl placed her hand on the lips of her savage lover and silenced him.

“Need I swear?” she said.

He took his mistress gently by the hand, looked at her for a moment and said: “Is the lady you are with really Mademoiselle de Verneuil?”

Francine stood with hanging arms, her eyelids lowered, her head bowed, pale and speechless.

“She is a strumpet!” cried Marche-a-Terre, in a terrifying voice.

At the word the pretty hand once more covered his lips, but this time he sprang back violently. The girl no longer saw a lover; he had turned to a wild beast in all the fury of its nature. His eyebrows were drawn together, his lips drew apart, and he showed his teeth like a dog which defends its master.

“I left you pure, and I find you muck. Ha! why did I ever leave you! You are here to betray us; to deliver up the Gars!”

These sentences sounded more like roars than words. Though Francine was frightened, she raised her angelic eyes at this last accusation and answered calmly, as she looked into his savage face: “I will pledge my eternal safety that that is false. That’s an idea of the lady you are serving.”

He lowered his head; then she took his hand and nestling to him with a pretty movement said: “Pierre, what is all this to you and me? I don’t know what you understand about it, but I can’t make it out. Recollect one thing: that noble and beautiful young lady has been my benefactress; she is also yours—we live together like two sisters. No harm must ever come to her where we are, you and I—in our lifetime at least. Swear it! I trust no one here but you.”

“I don’t command here,” said the Chouan, in a surly tone.

His face darkened. She caught his long ears and twisted them gently as if playing with a cat.

“At least,” she said, seeing that he looked less stern, “promise me to use all the power you have to protect our benefactress.”

He shook his head as if he doubted of success, and the motion made her tremble. At this critical moment the escort was entering the courtyard. The tread of the soldiers and the rattle of their weapons awoke the echoes and seemed to put an end to Marche-a-Terre’s indecision.

“Perhaps I can save her,” he said, “if you make her stay in the house. And mind,” he added, “whatever happens, you must stay with her and keep silence; if not, no safety.”

“I promise it,” she replied in terror.

“Very good; then go in—go in at once, and hide your fears from every one, even your mistress.”

“Yes.”

She pressed his hand; he stood for a moment watching her with an almost paternal air as she ran with the lightness of a bird up the portico; then he slipped behind the bushes, like an actor darting behind the scenes as the curtain rises on a tragedy.

“Do you know, Merle,” said Gerard as they reached the chateau, “that this place looks to me like a mousetrap?”

“So I think,” said the captain, anxiously.

The two officers hastened to post sentinels to guard the gate and the causeway; then they examined with great distrust the precipitous banks of the lakes and the surroundings of the chateau.

“Pooh!” said Merle, “we must do one of two things: either trust ourselves in this barrack with perfect confidence, or else not enter it at all.”

“Come, let’s go in,” replied Gerard.

The soldiers, released at the word of command, hastened to stack their muskets in conical sheaves, and to form a sort of line before the litter of straw, in the middle of which was the promised barrel of cider. They then divided into groups, to whom two peasants began to distribute butter and rye-bread. The marquis appeared in the portico to welcome the officers and take them to the salon. As Gerard went up the steps he looked at both ends of the portico, where some venerable larches spread their black branches; and he called up Clef-des-Coeurs and Beau-Pied.

“You will each reconnoitre the gardens and search the bushes, and post a sentry before your line.”

“May we light our fire before starting, adjutant?” asked Clef-des-Coeurs.

Gerard nodded.

“There! you see, Clef-des-Coeurs,” said Beau-Pied, “the adjutant’s wrong to run himself into this wasp’s-nest. If Hulot was in command we shouldn’t be cornered here—in a saucepan!”

“What a stupid you are!” replied Clef-des-Coeurs, “haven’t you guessed, you knave of tricks, that this is the home of the beauty our jovial Merle has been whistling round? He’ll marry her to a certainty—that’s as clear as a well-rubbed bayonet. A woman like that will do honor to the brigade.”

“True for you,” replied Beau-Pied, “and you may add that she gives pretty good cider—but I can’t drink it in peace till I know what’s behind those devilish hedges. I always remember poor Larose and Vieux-Chapeau rolling down the ditch at La Pelerine. I shall recollect Larose’s queue to the end of my days; it went hammering down like the knocker of a front door.”

“Beau-Pied, my friend; you have too much imagination for a soldier; you ought to be making songs at the national Institute.”

“If I’ve too much imagination,” retorted Beau-Pied, “you haven’t any; it will take you some time to get your degree as consul.”

A general laugh put an end to the discussion, for Clef-des-Coeurs found no suitable reply in his pouch with which to floor his adversary.

“Come and make our rounds; I’ll go to the right,” said Beau-Pied.

“Very good, I’ll take the left,” replied his comrade. “But stop one minute, I must have a glass of cider; my throat is glued together like the oiled-silk of Hulot’s best hat.”

The left bank of the gardens, which Clef-des-Coeurs thus delayed searching at once, was, unhappily, the dangerous slope where Francine had seen the moving line of men. All things go by chance in war.

As Gerard entered the salon and bowed to the company he cast a penetrating eye on the men who were present. Suspicions came forcibly to his mind, and he went at once to Mademoiselle de Verneuil and said in a low voice: “I think you had better leave this place immediately. We are not safe here.”

“What can you fear while I am with you?” she answered, laughing. “You are safer here than you would be at Mayenne.”

A woman answers for her lover in good faith. The two officers were reassured. The party now moved into the dining-room after some discussion about a guest, apparently of some importance, who had not appeared. Mademoiselle de Verneuil was able, thanks to the silence which always reigns at the beginning of a meal, to give some attention to the character of the assemblage, which was curious enough under existing circumstances. One thing struck her with surprise. The Republican officers seemed superior to the rest of the assembly by reason of their dignified appearance. Their long hair tied behind in a queue drew lines beside their foreheads which gave, in those days, an expression of great candor and nobleness to young heads. Their threadbare blue uniforms with the shabby red facings, even their epaulets flung back behind their shoulders (a sign throughout the army, even among the leaders, of a lack of overcoats),—all these things brought the two Republican officers into strong relief against the men who surrounded them.

“Oh, they are the Nation, and that means liberty!” thought Marie; then, with a glance at the royalists, she added, “on the other side is a man, a king, and privileges.” She could not refrain from admiring Merle, so thoroughly did that gay soldier respond to the ideas she had formed of the French trooper who hums a tune when the balls are whistling, and jests when a comrade falls. Gerard was more imposing. Grave and self-possessed, he seemed to have one of those truly Republican spirits which, in the days of which we write, crowded the French armies, and gave them, by means of these noble individual devotions, an energy which they had never before possessed. “That is one of my men with great ideals,” thought Mademoiselle de Verneuil. “Relying on the present, which they rule, they destroy the past for the benefit of the future.”

The thought saddened her because she could not apply it to her lover; towards whom she now turned, to discard by a different admiration, these beliefs in the Republic she was already beginning to dislike. Looking at the marquis, surrounded by men who were bold enough, fanatical enough, and sufficiently long-headed as to the future to give battle to a victorious Republic in the hope of restoring a dead monarchy, a proscribed religion, fugitive princes, and lost privileges, “He,” thought she, “has no less an aim than the others; clinging to those fragments, he wants to make a future from the past.” Her mind, thus grasped by conflicting images, hesitated between the new and the old wrecks. Her conscience told her that the one was fighting for a man, the other for a country; but she had now reached, through her feelings, the point to which reason will also bring us, namely: to a recognition that the king is the Nation.

The steps of a man echoed in the adjoining room, and the marquis rose from the table to greet him. He proved to be the expected guest, and seeing the assembled company he was about to speak, when the Gars made him a hasty sign, which he concealed from the Republicans, to take his place and say nothing. The more the two officers analyzed the faces about them, the more their suspicions increased. The clerical dress of the Abbe Gudin and the singularity of the Chouan garments were so many warnings to them; they redoubled their watchfulness, and soon discovered many discrepancies between the manners of the guests and the topics of their conversation. The republicanism of some was quite as exaggerated as the aristocratic bearing of others was unmistakable. Certain glances which they detected between the marquis and his guests, certain words of double meaning imprudently uttered, but above all the fringe of beard which was round the necks of several of the men and was very ill-concealed by their cravats, brought the officers at last to a full conviction of the truth, which flashed upon their minds at the same instant. They gave each other one look, for Madame du Gua had cleverly separated them and they could only impart their thoughts by their eyes. Such a situation demanded the utmost caution. They did not know whether they and their men were masters of the situation, or whether they had been drawn into a trap, or whether Mademoiselle de Verneuil was the dupe or the accomplice of this inexplicable state of things. But an unforeseen event precipitated a crisis before they had fully recognized the gravity of their situation.

The new guest was one of those solid men who are square at the base and square at the shoulders, with ruddy skins; men who lean backward when they walk, seeming to displace much atmosphere about them, and who appear to think that more than one glance of the eye is needful to take them in. Notwithstanding his rank, he had taken life as a joke from which he was to get as much amusement as possible; and yet, although he knelt at his own shrine only, he was kind, polite, and witty, after the fashion of those noblemen who, having finished their training at court, return to live on their estates, and never suspect that they have, at the end of twenty years, grown rusty. Men of this type fail in tact with imperturbable coolness, talk folly wittily, distrust good with extreme shrewdness, and take incredible pains to fall into traps.

When, by a play of his knife and fork which proclaimed him a good feeder, he had made up for lost time, he began to look round on the company. His astonishment was great when he observed the two Republican officers, and he questioned Madame du Gua with a look, while she, for all answer, showed him Mademoiselle de Verneuil in the same way. When he saw the siren whose demeanor had silenced the suspicions Madame du Gua had excited among the guests, the face of the stout stranger broke into one of those insolent, ironical smiles which contain a whole history of scandal. He leaned to his next neighbor and whispered a few words, which went from ear to ear and lip to lip, passing Marie and the two officers, until they reached the heart of one whom they struck to death. The leaders of the Vendeans and the Chouans assembled round that table looked at the Marquis de Montauran with cruel curiosity. The eyes of Madame du Gua, flashing with joy, turned from the marquis to Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who was speechless with surprise. The Republican officers, uneasy in mind, questioned each other’s thoughts as they awaited the result of this extraordinary scene. In a moment the forks remained inactive in every hand, silence reigned, and every eye was turned to the Gars. A frightful anger showed upon his face, which turned waxen in tone. He leaned towards the guest from whom the rocket had started and said, in a voice that seemed muffled in crape, “Death of my soul! count, is that true?”

“On my honor,” said the count, bowing gravely.

The marquis lowered his eyes for a moment, then he raised them and looked fixedly at Marie, who, watchful of his struggle, knew that look to be her death-warrant.

“I would give my life,” he said in a low voice, “for revenge on the spot.”

Madame du Gua understood the words from the mere movement of the young man’s lips, and she smiled upon him as we smile at a friend whose regrets are about to cease. The scorn felt for Mademoiselle de Verneuil and shown on every face, brought to its height the growing indignation of the two Republicans, who now rose hastily:—

“Do you want anything, citizens?” asked Madame du Gua.

“Our swords, citoyenne,” said Gerard, sarcastically.

“You do not need them at table,” said the marquis, coldly.

“No, but we are going to play at a game you know very well,” replied Gerard. “This is La Pelerine over again.”

The whole party seemed dumfounded. Just then a volley, fired with terrible regularity, echoed through the courtyard. The two officers sprang to the portico; there they beheld a hundred or so of Chouans aiming at the few soldiers who were not shot down at the first discharge; these they fired upon as upon so many hares. The Bretons swarmed from the bank, where Marche-a-Terre had posted them at the peril of their lives; for after the last volley, and mingling with the cries of the dying, several Chouans were heard to fall into the lake, where they were lost like stones in a gulf. Pille-Miche took aim at Gerard; Marche-a-Terre held Merle at his mercy.

“Captain,” said the marquis to Merle, repeating to the Republican his own words, “you see that men are like medlars, they ripen on the straw.” He pointed with a wave of his hand to the entire escort of the Blues lying on the bloody litter where the Chouans were despatching those who still breathed, and rifling the dead bodies with incredible rapidity. “I was right when I told you that your soldiers will not get as far as La Pelerine. I think, moreover, that your head will fill with lead before mine. What say you?”

Montauran felt a horrible necessity to vent his rage. His bitter sarcasm, the ferocity, even the treachery of this military execution, done without his orders, but which he now accepted, satisfied in some degree the craving of his heart. In his fury he would fain have annihilated France. The dead Blues, the living officers, all innocent of the crime for which he demanded vengeance, were to him the cards by which a gambler cheats his despair.

“I would rather perish than conquer as you are conquering,” said Gerard. Then, seeing the naked and bloody corpses of his men, he cried out, “Murdered basely, in cold blood!”

“That was how you murdered Louis XVI., monsieur,” said the marquis.

“Monsieur,” replied Gerard, haughtily, “there are mysteries in a king’s trial which you could never comprehend.”

“Do you dare to accuse the king?” exclaimed the marquis.

“Do you dare to fight your country?” retorted Gerard.

“Folly!” said the marquis.

“Parricide!” exclaimed the Republican.

“Well, well,” cried Merle, gaily, “a pretty time to quarrel at the moment of your death.”

“True,” said Gerard, coldly, turning to the marquis. “Monsieur, if it is your intention to put us to death, at least have the goodness to shoot us at once.”

“Ah! that’s like you, Gerard,” said Merle, “always in a hurry to finish things. But if one has to travel far and can’t breakfast on the morrow, at least we might sup.”

Gerard sprang forward without a word towards the wall. Pille-Miche covered him, glancing as he did so at the motionless marquis, whose silence he took for an order, and the adjutant-major fell like a tree. Marche-a-Terre ran to share the fresh booty with Pille-Miche; like two hungry crows they disputed and clamored over the still warm body.

“If you really wish to finish your supper, captain, you can come with me,” said the marquis to Merle.

The captain followed him mechanically, saying in a low voice: “It is that devil of a strumpet that caused all this. What will Hulot say?”

“Strumpet!” cried the marquis in a strangled voice, “then she is one?”

The captain seemed to have given Montauran a death-blow, for he re-entered the house with a staggering step, pale, haggard, and undone.

Another scene had meanwhile taken place in the dining-room, which assumed, in the marquis’s absence, such a threatening character that Marie, alone without her protector, might well fancy she read her death-warrant in the eyes of her rival. At the noise of the volley the guests all sprang to their feet, but Madame du Gua remained seated.

“It is nothing,” she said; “our men are despatching the Blues.” Then, seeing the marquis outside on the portico, she rose. “Mademoiselle whom you here see,” she continued, with the calmness of concentrated fury, “came here to betray the Gars! She meant to deliver him up to the Republic.”