"Don't forget the good God," said Maîtresse Joubard. "All the shadows of the best masters won't do much without Him."

"Did I say so?" Her husband turned upon her. "It is His will, I suppose, that things are so. We must take His creation as we find it. All I say is, He gives me too much to do, when He sets me on a farm with five sons and leaves me there but takes them all away."

"Hush, hush, master; Martin will come back," his wife said.

Nearly a month ago she had said the same. Angelot, standing again in the low dark kitchen with her slender old glass in his hand, remembered the day vividly, for it had indeed been a marked day in his life. The breakfast at Les Chouettes, the hidden Chouans, General Ratoneau and his adventure in the lane, and then the wonderful moonlight evening, the coming of Hélène, the dreams which all that night waited upon her and had filled all the following days. Yes; it was on that glorious morning that Maîtresse Joubard, poor soul, had talked with so much faith and courage of her Martin's return. And Angelot, for his part, though he would not for worlds have said so, saw no hope of it at all. The last letter from Martin had come many months ago. The poor conscript, the young Angevin peasant, tall like his father, with his mother's quiet, dark face, was probably lying heaped and hidden among other dead conscripts at the foot of some Spanish fortress wall.

Angelot set down his glass, took up his gun, looked vaguely out of the door into the misty evening, bright with the spiritual brilliance of the young moon.

"If Martin comes back, anything is possible," he was thinking. "I should believe then that all would go well with me."

From the white, ruinous archway that opened on the lane, a figure hobbled slowly forward across the gleams and shadows of the yard. The great dog chained there began to yelp and cry; it was not the voice with which he received a stranger; Négo growled at his master's feet.

Angelot's gaze became fixed and intent. The figure looked like one of those wandering beggars, those chemineaux, who tramped the roads of France with a bag to collect bones and crusts of bread, the scraps of food which no good Christian refused them, who haunted the lonely farms at night and to whom a stray lamb or kid or chicken never came amiss. This figure was ragged like them; it stooped, and limped upon a wooden leg and a stick; an empty sleeve was pinned across its breast. And the rags were those of a soldier's uniform, and the dark, bent face was tanned by hotter suns than the sun of Anjou.

Angelot turned to the old Joubards and tried to speak, but his voice shook and was choked, and the tears blinded his eyes.

"My poor dear friends—" he was beginning, but Joubard started forward suddenly.

"What steps are those in the yard? The dog speaks—ah!"

The old man rushed through the doorway with arms stretched out, wildly sobbing, "Martin, Martin, my boy!"—and clasped the miserable figure in a long embrace.

"Did I not say so, Monsieur Angelot?" the little mother cried; and the young man, with a sudden instinct of joy and reverence, caught her rough hand and kissed it as she went out of the door. "Tell madame she was right," she said.

Angelot called Négo and walked silently away. As he went he heard their cries of welcome, their sobs of grief, and then he heard a hoarse voice ringing, echoed by the old walls all about, and it shouted—"Vive l'Empereur!"

Angelot felt strangely exalted as he walked away. The heroism of the crippled soldier touched him keenly; this was the Empire in a different aspect from any that he yet knew; the opportunism of his father and of Monsieur de Mauves, the bare worldliness of the Sainfoys, the military brutality of Ratoneau. The voice of this poor soldier, wandering back, a helpless, destitute wreck, to end his days in his old home, sounded like the bugle-call of all that generous self-sacrifice, that pure enthusiasm for glory, which rose to follow Napoleon and made his career possible. Angelot felt as if he too could march in such an army. Then as he strode down the moor he heard Hervé de Sainfoy's voice again: "And why not even now?" and again he thought of those dearest ones now so angry with him, whose loyalty to old France and her kings was a part of their religion, and whom no present brilliancy of conquest and fame could dazzle or lead astray.

Thinking of these things, Angelot came down from the moor into a narrow lane which skirted it, part of the labyrinth of crossing ways which led from the south to La Marinière and Lancilly. This lane was joined, some way above, by the road which led across the moor from Les Chouettes. It was not the usual road from the south to Lancilly, but turned out of that a mile or two south, to wander westward round one or two lonely farms like La Joubardière. It ran deep between banks of stones covered with heather and ling and a wild mass of broom and blackberry bushes, the great round heads of the pollard oaks rising at intervals, so that there were patches of dark shadow, and the road itself was a succession of formidable ruts and holes and enormous stones.

In this thoroughfare two carriages had met, one going down-hill from the moorland road, the other, a heavy post-chaise and pair, climbing from the south. It was impossible for either conveyance to pass the other, and a noisy argument went on, first between the post-boy and the groom who drove the private carriage, a hooded, four-wheeled conveyance of the country, next between the travellers themselves.

Angelot came down from the steep footpath by which he had crossed the moor, just as the occupant of the post-chaise, after shouting angrily from the window, had got out to see the state of things for himself. He was a stranger to Angelot; a tall and very handsome young man of his own age, with a travelling cloak thrown over his showy uniform.

"What the devil is the matter? Why don't you drive on, you fool?" he said to the post-boy, who only gesticulated and pointed hopelessly to the obstacle in front of him.

"Well, but drive through them, or over them, or something," cried the imperious young voice. "Are you going to stop here all night staring at them? What is it? Some kind of diligence? Look here, fellow—you, driver—get out of my way, can't you? Mille tonnerres, what a road! Get down and take your horse out, do you hear? Lead him up the bank, and then drag your machine out of the way. Any one with you? Here is a man; he can help you. Service of the Emperor; no delay."

Apparently he took Angelot, in the dusk, for a country lad going home. Before there was time to show him his mistake, a dark, angry face bent forward from the hooded carriage, and Angelot recognised the Baron d'Ombré, who gave his orders in a tone quite as peremptory, and much haughtier.

"Post-boy! Back your carriage down the hill. You see very well that there is no room to pass here. Pardon, monsieur!" with a slight salute to the officer.

"Pardon!" he responded quickly. "Sorry to derange you, monsieur, but my chaise will not be backed. Service of His Majesty."

"That is nothing to me, monsieur."

"The devil! Who are you then?"

"I will give you my card with pleasure."

César d'Ombré descended hastily from the carriage, while Monsieur des Barres, who was with him, leaned forward rather anxiously.

"Explain the rule of the road to this gentleman," he said. "He is evidently a stranger. I see he has two servants behind the carriage, who can help in backing the horses. Explain that it is no intentional discourtesy, but a simple necessity. The delay will be small."

The tall young stranger bowed in the direction of the voice.

"Merci, monsieur. Your rules of the road do not concern me. I give way to no one—certainly not to your companion, who appears to be disloyal. I had forgotten, for a moment, the character of this country. The dark ages still flourish here, I believe."

The Baron d'Ombré presented his card with a low bow.

"Merci, monsieur. Permit me to return the compliment. But it is almost too dark for you to see my name, which ought to be well known here. De Sainfoy, Captain 13th Chasseurs, at your service. Will you oblige me—"

"It is not necessary at this moment, monsieur. You will not meet me at the Château de Lancilly."

"But you may possibly meet me—Vicomte des Barres—for your father and I sometimes put our old acquaintance before politics—" cried the voice from the carriage. "You will be very welcome to your family. But this arranges matters, Monsieur le Capitaine, for you are on the wrong road."

"Sapristi! The wrong road! Why, I picked up a wounded fellow and brought him a few miles. He got down to take a short cut home, and told me the next turn to the right would bring me to Lancilly. He was lying, then? A fellow called Joubard, not of my regiment."

"What do you say?" said d'Ombré to Angelot, who had already greeted him, lingering in the background to see the end of the dispute.

Georges de Sainfoy now first looked at the sportsman standing by the roadside, and Angelot looked at him. Monsieur des Barres, a little stiff from a long day's shooting—for he was not so lithe and active as his host, and not so young as the Baron—now got down from the carriage and joined the group.

"Bonjour, Monsieur Ange," he said kindly. "You have been shooting, I see, but not with your uncle. Have you met before, you two?" He glanced at Georges de Sainfoy, who stared haughtily. Even in the dim dusk Angelot could see that he was wonderfully like his mother.

"No, monsieur," he answered. "Not since twenty years ago, at least, and I think my cousin remembers that time as little as I do."

He spoke carelessly and lightly. De Sainfoy's fine blue eyes considered him coldly, measured his height and breadth and found them wanting.

"Ah! You are a La Marinière, I suppose?" he said.

"Ange de la Marinière, at your service."

Georges held out his hand. It was with an oddly unwilling sensation that Angelot gave his. Though the action might be friendly, there was something slighting, something impatient, in the stranger's manner; and the cousins already disliked each other, not yet knowing why.

"Are my family well? Do they expect me?" said Georges de Sainfoy.

"I believe they are very well. I do not know if they expect you," Angelot answered.

"Is it true that this is not the road to Lancilly?"

D'Ombré growled something about military insolence, and Monsieur des Barres laughed.

"Pardon, gentlemen," said De Sainfoy. "I am impatient, I know. A soldier on his way home does not expect to be stopped by etiquettes about passing on the road. My cousin knows the country; I appeal to him, as one of you did just now. Is this the way to Lancilly, or not?"

Angelot laughed. "Yes—and no," he said.

"What do you mean by that? Come, I am in no humour for joking."

Angelot looked at him and shrugged his shoulders.

"It is a road, but not the road," he said. "No one in his senses would drive this way to Lancilly. This part of it is bad enough; further on, where it goes down into the valley, it is much worse; I doubt if a heavy carriage could pass. You turned to the right too soon. Martin Joubard forgot this lane, perhaps. He would hardly have directed you this way—unless—"

"Unless what?"

"Unless he wished to show you the nature of the country, in case you should think of invading it in force."

The two Chouans laughed.

"Well said, Angelot!" muttered César d'Ombré.

Georges de Sainfoy, stiff and haughty, did not trouble himself about any jest or earnest concealed under his cousin's speech and the way the neighbours took it. He realised, perhaps, that in this wild west country the name of Napoleon was not altogether one to conjure with, that he had not left the enemies of the Empire behind him in Spain. But he realised, too, that this was hardly the place or the time to assert his own importance and his master's authority.

"Do you mean that this road is utterly impassable?" he said to Angelot. "How then did these gentlemen—"

"They did not come from Lancilly. They drove across the moor from my uncle's house, Les Chouettes, and turned into the lane a few hundred yards higher up. As to impassable—I think your wheels will come off, if you attempt it, and your horses' knees will suffer. Where the ruts are not two feet deep, the bare rock is almost perpendicular."

"Still it is not impassable?"

"Not in a case of necessity. But you will not attempt it."

"And why not?"

"Because on this hill Monsieur des Barres and Monsieur d'Ombré cannot back out of your way, and you can back out of theirs—and must."

"'Must' to me!" Georges de Sainfoy said between his teeth.

"Let us assure you, monsieur, that we regret the necessity—" Monsieur des Barres interfered in his politest manner.

"Enough, monsieur."

De Sainfoy gave his orders. His servants sprang down and helped the post-boy to back the horses to the foot of the hill. It was a long business, with a great deal of kicking, struggling, scrambling, and swearing. Monsieur des Barres' carriage followed slowly, he and Georges de Sainfoy walking down together. The Baron d'Ombré lingered to say a friendly good-night to Angelot, who was not disposed to wait on his cousin any further. That night there was born a kind of sympathy, new and strange, between the fierce young Chouan and the careless boy still halting between two opinions.

"Old Joubard's son is come back, then?" César asked. "Will that attach the old man to the Empire? Your uncle can never tell us on which side he is likely to be."

"Dame! I should think not!" said Angelot. "Poor Martin—I saw him just now. He has left a leg and an arm in Spain."

"Poor fellow! That flourishing cousin of yours is better off. On my word, we are obliged to you, Monsieur des Barres and I. If you had not been there to bring him to his senses—Come, Angelot, this country is not a place for loyal men. Do you care to stay here and be bullied by upstart soldiers? Start off with me to join the Princes; there is nothing to be done here."

"Ah!" Angelot laughed, though rather sadly. "Indeed, you tempt me—it is true, there is nothing here. But I have a father, and he has a vintage coming on. After that—I will consider."

"Yes, consider—and say nothing. I see you are discontented; the first step in the right way. Good-night, my friend."

If discontent had been despair, the army of the emigrants might have had a lively recruit in those days. But Martin Joubard had come back, so that anything seemed possible. Hope was not dead, and his native Anjou still held the heart of Angelot.

CHAPTER XVIII

Two things there were, which his mother impressed upon him earnestly and with difficulty; one, that Ratoneau's probable triumph was a secret, and must seem as great a surprise to herself and to him as it really would be to Hélène and his father; the other, that for the sake of Urbain de la Marinière, the valuable friend, he must pick no fresh quarrel with Angelot, already deep in disgrace with all the family.

"It is as well that you told me, or I should have been tempted to try a horse-whipping," said Captain Georges.

Two days after his arrival he rode off to Sonnay-le-Loir. It was the right thing for an officer on leave to pay a visit of ceremony to the General in command of the division, as well as to the Prefect of the department, and this necessity came in very well at the moment.

Madame de Sainfoy spoke confidently, but she was in reality not quite easy in her mind. She had seen and heard nothing of General Ratoneau since the day when Urbain put his short letter into her hand. Sometimes, impatient and anxious, worried by Hélène's pale face and the fear of some soft-hearted weakness on Hervé's part, she found it difficult to bear day after day of suspense and silence. Suppose the affair were going ill, and not well! Suppose that, after all, the Prefect had refused to gratify the General, and that no imperial command was coming to break down Hervé's resistance, strong enough in that quarter! Georges promised her, as he rode away, that the matter should be cleared up to her satisfaction.

He found the town of Sonnay-le-Loir, and General Ratoneau himself, in a state of considerable agitation. The excellent Prefect was very ill. He was never a strong man physically, and the nervous irritation caused by such a colleague as Ratoneau might have been partly the cause of his present collapse. Sorely against his will he had listened to Ratoneau's fresh argument, and had consented to stop a whole string of political arrests by forwarding the marriage the General had set his heart upon. His own personal danger, if he had defied the General, would have been by no means small. Simon was right; Ratoneau could have represented his mild measures in such a light as to ruin him, along with those Angevin gentlemen whom he was trying by gentle means to reconcile with the Empire. At that precise moment he could not even punish the man he suspected of betraying him. Ratoneau had protected his tool so far as to leave him nameless; but in any case, from the imperial point of view, a man who denounced Chouans was doing his duty. As to the fact of sending up Mademoiselle de Sainfoy's name to the Emperor and suggesting for her the very husband whom her father had refused to accept—the chief sin, in the eyes of that day, was the unfriendly action towards her father.

The whole system was odious; it appeared more or less so, according to the degree of refinement in the officials who had to work it; yet it came from the Emperor, and could not be entirely set aside; also every marriage, in one way or another, was an arranged thing; it must suit family politics, if not the interests of the Empire. Nothing strange from the outside—and all the world would look at it so—in the marriage of the Comte de Sainfoy's daughter with the local General of division. The lady's unwillingness was a mere detail, of which the laws of society would take no cognizance. The sentimental view which called such a marriage sacrilege was absurd, after all, and the Prefect knew it. Indeed, after the first, the thought of Hélène's face did not trouble him so much as that of the coup de patte in store for her father, the stealthy blow to come from himself, the old, the trusted fellow-countryman.

But the injury to Hervé de Sainfoy weighed lightly, after all, when balanced with the arrest and ruin of Joseph de la Marinière and possibly his young nephew, as well as of Monsieur des Barres, Monsieur de Bourmont, the Messieurs d'Ombré, and other men more or less suspected of conspiring against the Empire. Even if this, perhaps deserved, had been all! but the Prefect knew very well that an enemy such as Ratoneau would not be satisfied without his own degradation.

He had yet one resource, delay. There was the chance that Hervé de Sainfoy might arrange some other marriage for his daughter; and the Prefect went so far as to consider the possibility of sending him a word of warning, but then thought it too dangerous, not quite trusting Hervé's discretion, and gave up the idea. From day to day he put off sending the necessary papers to Paris. From day to day, after the eventful interview, he managed to avoid any private conversation with Ratoneau. This was possible, as the General was occupied in reviewing the troops in the neighbourhood, and was absent from Sonnay for several days. Then a new ally stepped in on Hélène's side, and touched the Prefect gently, but effectively. When General Ratoneau returned to Sonnay, the very day before Georges de Sainfoy's visit, he was met by the news that a slight stroke of paralysis had deprived Monsieur de Mauves of his speech, and of the use of his right hand. Going at once to the Prefecture, roughly demanding an interview with the Prefect, he encountered a will stronger than his own in that of the Sonnay doctor, who absolutely refused to let any one into the sickroom.

"But he must have written to Paris—he must—he promised me that he would," Ratoneau assured Georges de Sainfoy, who stood before him frowning doubtfully. "He dared not disappoint me. I have him under my thumb, I tell you—like that—" he crushed a fly on the table.

"I see—but why all this delay?" said the young man.

Ratoneau drummed with his fist and whistled. "Delay, yes—" he said. "I meant Monsieur le Préfet to give an account of himself yesterday—I suppose I am as impatient as you are—" he grinned. "After all, monsieur, this official business takes time. It is only a fortnight since I brought the good man to his marrow-bones. Ah, I wish you had seen him! the grimaces he made! When I went first he defied me, as bold as you please. Your father was his friend, he would do nothing to annoy your father. Then, when I went back with a little more information, he began to see all his beloved Chouans in prison, as well as himself. I had him then. He began to see, perhaps, that a man in my position was not such an impossible husband for a young girl of good family. Ha, ha!"

"A fortnight seems to me quite long enough to write to Paris and get an answer," said Georges.

He was a little sorry for himself. He wished he had seen Ratoneau for the first time on horseback, a smart, correct officer, reviewing his troops. Then it would have been easy enough to accept him as a brother-in-law. But this red-faced, slovenly creature in careless undress, made even more repulsive by his uncanny likeness to Napoleon—vulgar in manners, bragging in talk! De Sainfoy had met strange varieties of men among his brother officers, but never anything quite so forbidding as this. He did not give his sister a thought of pity; it was not in him; but he had a moment of sympathy with his father, of surprise at his mother. However, he was not the man to be conquered by prejudice. If the affair was disagreeable, all the more reason to push it through quickly, to reach any advantages it might bring. His smooth young brow had a new line across it; that was all.

"You talk of the Prefect's 'beloved Chouans,' Monsieur le Général," he said. "It seems to me that in any case he is not fit for his position. It sounds like treason, what you say."

"Ah! that is another question," said Ratoneau. "That need not concern us just now, you and me. He must do what we want, first of all; later on we shall see. Remember, Monsieur le Vicomte, any active measures against the Chouans would touch your family—your connections, at least. Very complicated, the state of society in this province. I wish for nothing better than to sweep out all these tiresome people, but it behoves me to move gently."

Georges could not help smiling. "That must be against your principles and your inclinations, Monsieur le Général."

"It is against my interests," Ratoneau said, drily enough. "Inclinations—well, yes. I should be sorry to annoy Monsieur Urbain de la Marinière, who is on my side in these affairs. He is a sensible man. His brother's right place is in a state prison. As to that son of his—well, he wants a sharp lesson, and one of these days he will have it. He is an impudent young scoundrel, that little La Marinière."

Ratoneau lifted his dark eyes and looked straight at Georges, who flushed under his gaze.

"But perhaps you think better of your cousin?" the General said.

"No—I dislike him. He is a presumptuous fellow."

"Presumptuous in what way?"

Georges shrugged his shoulders. There were limits to the complaisance he found due to this future relation; the family secrets, the family confidences, though they might indirectly concern him, should at least be kept from him for the present. Georges knew all his sister's story, as far as her mother knew it. The story was safe, though out of no kindness to Hélène.

"He thinks too much of himself," said Georges, and laughed rather awkwardly. "He orders his betters about as if he were the chief landowner of the country, instead of a farmer's son. This happened to me the other night, Monsieur le Général."

He went on to describe his adventure in the steep lane, and how Angelot had ordered his men to back the horses. The General listened with some impatience.

"Sapristi! he is a hero of the lanes, this Angelot. I have had my experience, too," but he did not describe it. "He will make himself plenty of enemies, that cousin of yours. However, let him swagger as he likes among horses and cows, till he finds himself between four walls with his friends the Chouans. I should like to be assured that his airs will carry him no further. To speak plainly, Monsieur le Vicomte, when I saw them together at Lancilly, I fancied that he and mademoiselle your sister—I see by your face that I was right!"

The General started up with an oath. Georges faced him, cool and dignified.

"My sister is safe in my mother's care, Monsieur le Général. Do not disturb yourself."

"But do you know, monsieur, that the servants thought the same as I did?"

"What can that signify to you or to me, monsieur?"

Ratoneau flung himself back into his chair with an angry laugh. The proud disgust of the young captain's tone had a certain effect upon him; yet he was not altogether reassured.

"Will you tell me on your honour," he growled, "that you know nothing of any love affair between that young cub and your sister? I swear, sir, I distrust you all. It is your mother's interest to marry her to me, but—"

"The imperial order has not yet been sent down," said Georges, his blue eyes flashing like steel.

He would have said more; he did not know what he might have said, for at that moment his sympathy with his father was growing by leaps and bounds, and his mother's plan began to seem incomprehensible. However, to do her justice, she had never seen General Ratoneau as he saw him.

"What do you mean by that?" said Ratoneau, sharply, and Georges found himself already repenting.

For the thing had to be carried through, and he knew it.

Further argument was stopped, at that moment, by a gentle tap at the door.

"Come in!" roared the General. "What the devil have you got there, Simon?"

The police agent stepped lightly across the room. He laid a folded paper on the table, and drew out from between its pages an unsealed letter. He spread this out with the signature uppermost, "De Mauves, Préfet du Loir."

Georges de Sainfoy, a silent looker-on, stood by the chimneypiece while General Ratoneau eagerly seized the papers. He first read the letter, which seemed to give him satisfaction, for he laughed aloud; then he snatched up the larger document, which looked like a government report of some kind. Simon, in his gendarme's dress, stood grinning in the background.

"But—but in the name of thunder what does all this mean?" Ratoneau's looks had changed to sudden fury. "Are these copies or originals? Simon, you ass, do you mean to tell me—"

Simon shrugged his shoulders and showed his teeth.

"Sorry, Monsieur le Général, but no fault of mine! I made sure they had gone to Paris by the last courier, if not before. The originals, undoubtedly."

"You make sure in a queer sort of way," said Ratoneau. "You told me the Prefect's secretary was in your hands, that you had access to his bureaux at any time. You lied, then?"

"No, Monsieur le Général," Simon answered, gently and readily. "Or how should I have got hold of the papers? We have nothing to do now but to get them dispatched at once to the Minister of Police, who will pass them on to Monsieur le Duc de Frioul."

"Go downstairs, and wait till I send for you."

Simon went, not without a side-glance at the silent young officer, standing tall, fair, and stiff as if on parade, no feeling of any sort showing itself through the correctness of his bearing.

"Is that her brother? Curious!" the spy muttered as he slipped away.

General Ratoneau ran his eye once more over the paper in his hand, then looked at Georges and held it out to him.

"The delay is vexatious," he said, "and my friend the Prefect shall pay for it, one of these days. But at any rate, the thing is now in our own hands, and there can be no cheating. Report and letter are what they should be—I might have guessed that the old villain would put off sending them—hoping for some loophole, I suppose. However, you can tell Madame la Comtesse that you have seen the documents, and that they start for Paris to-night."

Georges de Sainfoy read the document, truly a strange one, and it was a strange sort of man who had the effrontery to put it into his hand. Like a flash of blinding light, it showed the revolutionary, the tyrannical side of the Empire which had fascinated him on its side of military glory.

This paper gave a full description, as officially demanded, of Mademoiselle Hélène de Sainfoy, aged nineteen. It mentioned her personal attractions, her éducation distinguée, her probable dowry, the names and position of her parents, the extent and situation of her property—in short, every particular likely to be useful in arranging a marriage for Mademoiselle de Sainfoy. It was all highly complimentary, and it was supposed to be a confidential communication from the Prefect to Savary, Duc de Rovigo, the Minister of Police. But it was not pleasant reading for Mademoiselle de Sainfoy's brother, however devotedly imperialist he might be.

He stepped forward and laid it on the table without a remark. Ratoneau, watching him keenly, smiled, and held out the letter.

"A private letter from Monsieur le Préfet? I do not read it," said Georges, shortly.

"As you please, my friend," said Ratoneau. "I only show you these things for the satisfaction of Madame la Comtesse. Monsieur Urbain de la Marinière may be interested, too. The letter mentions my distinguished claims on His Majesty, and suggests me as a husband for mademoiselle. That is all. I think it will be effectual. But now, monsieur, you have not answered my little question about your cousin Angelot. He is in love with your sister, n'est-ce pas?"

"As you put it so, monsieur, I think it is not unlikely," said Georges. "But what does that signify? Every one knows it is an impossibility, even himself, ambitious fool as he may be."

"And the young lady?" said Ratoneau, his face darkening.

"My mother answers for her," Georges answered coldly, and bowed himself out.

He had information enough to carry back to his mother.

He was not too comfortable in his mind, having ideas of honour, at the unscrupulous doings by which Hélène's future husband was protecting his own interests and bringing his marriage about. He rather wished, though he worshipped power, that this powerful General had been a different sort of man.

"Still he may make her a good husband," he thought. "He is jealous already."

He rode across the square, gay and stately in his Chasseur uniform, and dismounted at the Prefecture to leave his card and to enquire for Monsieur de Mauves.

Ratoneau watched him from the window with a dissatisfied frown, then rang sharply for Simon.

"That young fellow would turn against me on small provocation," he said. "Now—as to the seal for these papers—you can procure that, I suppose?"

"Leave that to me, monsieur."

"Another thing: this means further delay, and I am not sure that you were entirely wrong about young La Marinière. Listen. He would be better out of the way until this affair is settled. He has been met in company with known Chouans. A word to the wise, Simon. Devise something, or go to the devil, for I've done with you."

"But there is nothing easier, monsieur! Nothing in the world!" Simon cried joyfully.

CHAPTER XIX

The laws of the vintage were old; they were handed down through centuries, from the days of the Romans, but the Revolution swept them and their obligations away. Napoleon's code knew nothing of them. Yet private individuals, when they were clever men like Urbain de la Marinière, were sure by hook or by crook to arrange the vintage at the time that suited their private arrangements. The ancient connection, once of lord and vassal, now of landlord and tenant, between La Marinière and La Joubardière, had been hardly at all disturbed by the Revolution. Joubard was not the man to turn against the old friends of his family. Besides, he believed in the waning moon. So when Monsieur Urbain hit on the precise moment for his own vintage, and summoned him and his people, as well as Monsieur Joseph's people, to help at La Marinière and to let their own vineyards wait a week or two, he made no grievance of it.

"The weather will last," he said, when Martin grumbled, "and the moon will be better. Besides, those slopes are always forwarder than ours. And we shall lose nothing by helping the master. But if we did, I would rather spoil my own wine than disappoint Monsieur Angelot."

"You and the mother are in love with his pretty face," growled the soldier. "Why doesn't he go to the war, and fight for his country, and come home a fine man like his cousin? Ah, you think there are different ways of coming home, do you? Well, if you ask me, I am prouder of my lost limbs than the young captain is of his rank and his uniform."

"And Monsieur Angelot honours you, poor Martin, more than he does his smart cousin," said Joubard. "Allons! Our vintage will not suffer, now that you are at home to see to it. And they will not take you away again, my son!"

So, in those first days of October, the vintage was in full swing at La Marinière. All the peasants came to help, men and women, old and young. Dark, grave faces that matched oddly with a babel of voices and gay laughter; broad straw hats as sunburnt as their owners, white caps, blue shoulders, bobbing among the long rows of bronzed vines loaded with fruit. The vintagers cut off the bunches with sharp knives and dropped them into wooden pails; these were emptied into great hottes on men's backs, and carried to the carts, full of barrels, waiting in the lane. Slowly the patient white horses tramped down to the yard of La Marinière. There, in its own whitewashed building with the wide-arched door, the stone wine-press was ready; the grapes were thrown in in heaps, the barefooted men, splashed red to their waists, trod and crushed with a swishing sound; the red juice ran down in a stream, foaming into the vault beneath, into the vats where it was to ferment and become wine.

Angelot worked in the vineyard like anybody else, sometimes cutting grapes, sometimes leading the carts up and down, and feeding the horses with bunches of grapes, which they munched contentedly. So did the dogs who waited on the vintagers, not daring to venture in among the vines, but sitting outside with eager eyes and wagging tails till their portion of fruit was thrown to them. And the workers themselves, and the little bullet-headed boys and white-capped girls who played about the vineyard, all ate grapes to their satisfaction; for the crop was splendid, and there was no need to stint anybody.

A festal spirit reigned over all. Though most of these people were good Christians, ready to thank God for His gifts without any intention of misusing them, there was something of the old pagan feeling about. Purely a country feeling, a natural religion much older than Christianity, as Urbain remarked to the old Curé, who agreed with Madame Urbain in not quite caring for this way of looking at it. But he was accustomed to such views from Urbain, who never, for instance, let the Rogation processions pass singing through the fields without pointing out their descent from something ancient, pagan, devilish.

"But if you have cast out the devil, dear Curé, what does it matter?" said Urbain. "The beauty alone is left. And all true beauty is good by nature; and what is not beautiful is not good. You want nothing more, it seems to me."

"Ah, your philosophies!" sighed the old man.

However, in different ways, the vintage attracted everybody. Monsieur Joseph and Henriette were there, very busy among the vines; these people would help them another day. A party strolled across from Lancilly; Monsieur and Madame de Sainfoy, idly admiring the pretty scene; Captain Georges, casting superior glances, Sophie and Lucie hanging on their splendid brother's looks and words. They were allowed to walk with him, and were very happy, Mademoiselle Moineau having been left behind in charge of Hélène. The La Marinière vineyards were not considered safe ground for that young culprit. She had to be contented with a distant view, and could see from her window the white horses crawling up and down the steep hill.

Some patronising notice was bestowed by the people from the château on Martin Joubard, who moved slowly about among the old neighbours, a hero to them all, whatever their political opinions might be. For, after all, he went to the wars against his will; and when there he had done his duty; and his enthusiasm for the Emperor was a new spirit in that country, which roused curiosity, if nothing more. No one could fail to rejoice with old Joubard and his wife. Whatever they themselves thought, and hardly dared to say, was said for them by their neighbours. Few indeed had come back, of the conscript lads of Anjou. How much better, people said, to have Martin maimed than not at all. What was a wooden leg? a very useful appendage, on which Martin might limp actively about the farms; and the loss of an arm did not matter so much, for, by his father's account, he could do everything but hold and fire a gun with the one left to him. His mother had dressed him in clean country clothes, laying aside his tattered old uniform in a chest, for he would not have it destroyed. All the girls in the two villages were running after Martin, who had always been popular; all the men wanted to hear his tales of the war. He was certainly the hero of Monsieur Urbain's vintage, the centre figure of that sunny day.

Angelot felt himself drawn to the soldier, whose return home had touched him with so strange a thrill. There was a spark of the heroic in this young fellow. Angelot found himself watching him, listening to him, perhaps as a kind of refuge from the cold looks of his relations; for even Riette dared not run after him as of old.

When purple shadows began to lie long in the yellow evening glow, and the crickets sang louder than ever, and sweet scents came out of the warm ground—when the day's work was nearly done, Angelot walked away with Martin from the vineyard. He wanted some of those stirring stories to himself, it seemed. If one must go away and fight, if the old Angevin life became once for all impossible, then might it not be better under the eagles, as his wise father thought, than with that army and on that side for which, in spite of his mother and his uncle, he could not rouse in himself any enthusiasm? True, he liked little he knew of the Empire and its men, except this poor lamed conscript; but always in his whirling thoughts there was that will-o'-the-wisp, that wavering star of hope that Hélène's father had seemed to offer him. Could he forsake, for any other reason, the sight of the forbidden walls that held her!

He and Martin went away up the lane together, and climbed along the side of the moor towards La Joubardière, Martin telling wild stories of battles and sieges, of long marching and privation, Angelot listening fascinated, as he helped the crippled soldier over the rough ground.

Martin had been wounded under Suchet at the siege of Tortosa, so that he had seen little of the more recent events of the war, but his personal adventures, before and since, had been exciting; and not the least wonderful part of the story was his wandering life, a wounded beggar on his way back across the Pyrenees into his own country. As Angelot listened, the politics of French parties faded away, and he only realised that this was a Frenchman, fighting the enemies of France and giving his young life for her without a word of regret. Napoleon might have conquered the world, it seemed, with such conscript soldiers as this. These, not men like Ratoneau or Georges de Sainfoy, were the heroes of the war.

The sun had set, and swift darkness was coming down, before the young men reached La Joubardière. The lane, the same in which the two carriages had met, ran in a hollow between high banks studded with oaks like gigantic toadstools, adding to the deepness of the shadow.

"There are people following us," said Angelot.

He interrupted Martin in the midst of one of his stories; the soldier was standing still, leaning on his stick, and laughed with a touch of annoyance, for he was growing vain of his skill as a story-teller.

"My father and mother," he said. "And here I am forgetting their soup, which I promised to have ready."

"It is not—I know Maître Joubard's step," said Angelot.

"Some of the vintagers—" Martin was beginning, when he and Angelot were surrounded suddenly in the dusk by several men, two of whom seized Angelot by the shoulders.

"I arrest you, in the Emperor's name," said a third man.

Angelot struggled to free himself, and Martin lifted his stick threateningly.

"What is this, rascals? Do you know what you are saying? This is the son of Monsieur de la Marinière."

"It is some mistake. You have no business to arrest me. You will answer for this, police! You will answer it to Monsieur le Préfet. He is ill, and cannot have given the order. Show me your authority."

"Never mind our authority," said the chief. "We don't want Monsieur de la Marinière, but we do want his son. Are you coming quietly, young gentleman, or must we put on handcuffs? Get out of the way with your stick, you one-legged fellow, or I shall have to punish you."

"Keep back, Martin; you can do nothing. Go and tell my father," said Angelot. He shook off the men's hands, and stood still and upright in the midst of them.

"Why do you arrest me?" he said. "Where are you going to take me?"

"Ah, that you will see," said the police officer.

The snarling malice in his voice seemed suddenly familiar to Angelot.

"Why, I know you—you are—"

"Never mind who I am. It is my business to keep down Chouans."

"But I am not a Chouan!"

"A man is known by his company. Now then—quick march—away!"

"Adieu, Martin! This is all nonsense—I shall soon come back," Angelot cried, as they hustled him on.

A few moments, and the very tramp of their feet was lost in the dusk, for they had dragged their prisoner out of the lane and were crossing the open moor. Martin, in much tribulation, made the best of his way back to meet his father and mother, and with them carried the news to La Marinière.

Half an hour later, Monsieur Urbain, whistling gaily, came back from a pleasant stroll home with his Sainfoy cousins. Everything seemed satisfactory; Adélaïde had been kind, the vintage was splendid. If only Angelot were a sensible boy, there would be nothing left to wish for.

The moon was up, flooding the old yards that were now empty and still. As he came near, he saw Anne waiting for him in the porch, and supposed that the moonlight made her so strangely pale.

"My dearest," he said, as he came up, "there is to be a ball this month at Lancilly, in honour of Georges. But I do not know whether that foolish son of yours will be invited."

Anne looked him in the face; no, it was not the moonlight that made her so pale.

"They have arrested Ange as a Chouan," she said.

CHAPTER XX

"Then take me to the sous-Préfet, or whoever is in his place."

"You are going to a higher authority, monsieur, not a lower one."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You are going to Paris. Monsieur le Comte Réal, the head of our branch of the police, will decide what is to be done with you."

"Mon Dieu! The old Jacobin! He nearly had my uncle in his fangs once," said Angelot, half to himself. "But what do they accuse me of? Chouannerie? But I am not a Chouan, and you know enough of our affairs to know that, Monsieur Simon!"

The Chouan-catcher laughed sourly.

"I believe this is some private devilry," the prisoner went on, with careless daring. "The Prefect has nothing to do with it. It is spite against my uncle—but you are a little afraid of touching him. Don't imagine, though, that you will annoy him particularly by carrying me off. We are not on good terms just now, my uncle and I. In truth, I have offended all my relations, and nobody will be sorry to have me away for a time."

"Tant mieux, monsieur!" said Simon. "Then you won't object to giving the Minister of Police a little information about your uncle and the other Chouan gentlemen, his friends."

"Ah! that is quite another story! That is the idea, is it? Monsieur le Duc de Rovigo, and Monsieur le Comte Réal, flatter themselves that they have got hold of a traitor?"

"Pardon, monsieur! It is the Chouans who are traitors."

"I think I could find a few others in our poor France this very night. But I am not one of them. Again, whose authority have you for arresting me? Is it Monsieur Réal who has stretched his long arm so far?"

"The authority is sufficient, and you are my prisoner," Simon answered coolly.

"I suspect you have no authority but your own!"

"They will enlighten you in Paris, possibly."

"Come, tell me, how much are they paying you for this little trick?"

One of the other men laughed suddenly, and Simon became angry.

"Hold your tongue, prisoner, or I shall have you gagged. You need not speak again till the authorities in Paris take means to make you. Yes, I assure you, they can persuade rather strongly when they like. Now, quick march—we have a post-chaise waiting in the road over there."

Angelot saw that his wisest course was to say no more. He was unarmed; they had taken away the knife he had used for cutting grapes; his faithful fowling-piece was hanging in the hall at La Marinière. He was guarded by five men, all armed, all taller and bigger than himself. He walked along in silence, apparently resigned to his fate, but thinking hard all the while.

His thoughts, busy and curious as they were, did not hit on the right origin of his very disagreeable adventure. Knowing a good deal of Simon by repute, and a little by experience, and having heard legends of such police exploits in the West within the last ten years, though not since Monsieur de Mauves took office, he felt almost sure that the spy was taking advantage of the Prefect's illness to gain a little money and credit on his own account. And of course his own arrest, a young and unimportant man, was more easily managed and less likely to have consequences than that of his uncle, for instance, or Monsieur des Barres. He did not believe that the Paris authorities knew anything of it, yet; but he did believe that Simon knew what he was doing; that Réal, the well-known head of the police in the western arrondissement, trained under Fouché in suspicion, cunning and mercilessness, would make unscrupulous use of any means of knowing the present state of Royalist opinion in Anjou. He would be all the more severe, probably, because the mildness of the Prefect of the Loir had more than once irritated him. So Angelot thought he saw that Simon might easily drag his chosen victim into a dangerous place, from which it would be hard to escape with honour.

They reached the north-east edge of the moor just as the moon was rising. At first the low light made all things strangely confused, marching armies of shadows over the wild ground. Every bush might hide a man, and the ranks of low oaks stood like giants guarding the hollow black paths that wound between them. Les Chouettes, the only habitation near, lay a mile away below the vineyards. The high-road to Paris might be reached by one of the narrow roads that crossed the heath not far away.

When they came to the edge of the open ground, near a grove of oaks plunged in bracken, with a few crumbling walls beyond it where a farm had once stood, Simon halted his party and whistled. He seemed to expect a reply, but got none. After waiting a few minutes, whistling again, exclaiming impatiently, he beckoned one of the other men and they walked away together towards the road.

"Something wrong with the chaise?" said Angelot to the three who were left. "What will you do if it is not there? You will have to carry me to Paris, for I promise you I don't mean to walk."

"Monsieur will not be very heavy," one of the men answered, good-humouredly; the same who had laughed before.

"Lift me then, and see!" said Angelot. "All right, my good fellow, I'll ride on your shoulders. Voyons! you can carry me down the road."

They were standing in a patch of moonlight, just outside the shadow of the oaks. The two other men stepped back for an instant, while their comrade stooped, laughing, to lift Angelot. He was met by a lightning-like blow worthy of an English training, and tumbled over into the bracken. One of the two others fell flat in the opposite direction, and the prisoner vanished into the shadows of the grove. The third man dashed after him, but came into violent contact, in the darkness, with the trunk of a tree, and fell down stunned at the foot of it.

By this time the chaise had slowly climbed the hill from a village in the further valley, where the post-boy had been refreshing himself and his horses. Simon stopped to scold him, then left his companion to keep guard over him, and himself mounted again the precipitous bit of stony lane which had once been the approach to the farm, and now opened on the wild moor. He whistled shrilly as he came, and then called in a subdued voice: "All right, men! Bring him down."

There was no answer. He quickened his pace, and coming up under the oaks found the two fellows sitting on the ground rubbing their heads, staring vacantly round with eyes before which all the moonshiny world was swimming.

Simon swore at them furiously. "What has happened, you fools? Where's Alexandre? Where is the prisoner? name of all that's—"

"Devil knows, I don't," said the fellow who had paid dear for his good-humour. "That little gentleman is cleverer than you or me, Master Simon, and stronger too. He knocked us down like ninepins. Where is he? Nearly back at La Marinière, I should think, and with Alexandre chasing after him!"

"Not so far off as that, I suspect," said Simon. "Up with you. He is hidden in this cover, and you have got to beat it till you find him. How did you come to let him escape, pair of idiots? You are not fit for your work."

He went back a few yards, while the men scrambled to their feet, and whistled sharply for the one he had left in charge of the post-boy. Then he lighted a lantern, and they pushed at various points into the wood. The first discovery was that of Alexandre, lying senseless; they dragged him into the road and left him there to come to himself. Then they unearthed a wild boar, which rushed out furiously from the depths of the bracken and charged at the light, then bolted off across the moor. Smaller animals fled from them in all directions; large birds rustled and cried, disturbed in the thick foliage of the oaks, impenetrable masses of shade.

"If we were to shoot into the trees? He may be hidden in one of them."

The suggestion came from Angelot's friend, whose frivolity had given him his chance, and whose anxiety to put himself on the right side by catching him again, dead or alive, very nearly brought his young life to a speedy end. For foolish François was wise this time, so wise, had he only known it, that Angelot was sitting in the very tree he touched with his hand as he spoke, a couple of yards above his head.

The boy had courage enough and to spare; but his heart seemed to stop at that moment, and he felt himself turning white in the darkness. The men could hardly shoot into the trees without hitting him, though he had slipped down as far as he could into the hollow trunk. He would be horribly wounded, if not killed. It was a hard fate, to be shot as a poacher might shoot a pheasant roosting on a bough. An unsportsmanlike sort of death, Uncle Joseph would say. He held his breath. Should he await it, or give himself back to the police by jumping down amongst them?

The moment of danger passed. Angelot smiled as the men moved on, and hid himself a little more completely.

"No," Simon said. "No shooting till you are obliged. His uncle lives only a mile off, and he will come out if he hears a gun."

"So he would, the blessed little man!" muttered Angelot.

The men went on searching the wood, but with such stealthy movements, so little noise, even so little perseverance, as it seemed to him, that he was confirmed in his idea of Simon's sole responsibility. These men were police, supposed to be all-powerful; but somehow they did not act or talk as if Savary and the Emperor, or even Réal, were behind them.

Angelot watched the light as it glimmered here and there, and listened to the rustling in the bracken. Presently, when they were far off on the other side of the little grove, he climbed out of the trunk and slipped down from his tree. Simon might change his mind about shooting; in any case it seemed safer to change one's position. Being close to the edge of the landes, Angelot's first thought was to take to his heels and run; then again that seemed risky, and a shot in the back was undesirable. He dived in among the bracken, which was taller than himself, and grew thick on the ground like a small forest. Half crawling, half walking, stopping dead still to watch the wandering gleams of light and to hear the steps and voices of the men, then pushing gently on again, Angelot reached a hiding-place on the other side of the grove. Here the bracken, taller and thicker than ever, grew against and partly over the ruined walls of the old farm. In the very middle of it, where the wall made a sudden turn, there was a hollow, half sheltered by stones, and a black yawning hole below, the old well of the homestead. All the top of it was in ruins; a fox had made its hole halfway down; there was still water at the bottom of the well. Here, plunged in the darkness, Angelot sat on the edge of the well and waited. There were odd little sounds about him, the squeaking of young animals, the sleepy chirp of easily disturbed birds; a frog dived with a splash into the well, and then in a few unearthly croaks told his story to his mates down there. The bracken smelt warm and dry; it was not a bad place to spend a summer night in, for any one who knew wild nature and loved it.

All was so still that Angelot, after listening intently for a time, leaned his head against the white stones, fell asleep, and dreamed of Hélène. If he had carried her off that night, mad fellow as he was, some such shelter might have been all he had to offer her.

He woke with a start, and saw by the light that he must have been asleep at least two hours, for the moon was high in the sky. He got up cautiously, and crept through the bracken to the edge of the grove towards Les Chouettes.

It was fortunate that he took the precaution to move noiselessly, as if he were stalking game, for he had hardly reached the edge of the wood when he saw Simon standing in the moonlight. Evidently he had been sitting or lying on the bank and had just risen to his feet, for one of his comrades lay there still.

"He is hidden here. He must be here," said Simon, in a low, decided voice. "I will not go away without him. Hungry and thirsty—yes, I dare say you are. You deserve it, for letting him escape."

"I tell you, he is not here," said the other man. "We have been all round this bit of country; all through it. And look at the moonlight. A mouse couldn't get away without our seeing it. What's that? a rabbit?"

"I shall walk round again," said Simon. "Those other fellows may be asleep, if they are as drowsy and discontented as you. Look sharp now, while I am away."

Simon tramped down the lane. The other police officer stretched himself and stared after him.

"I'll eat my cap," he muttered, "if the young gentleman's in the wood still. He deserves to be caught, if he is."

At that moment Angelot was standing under an oak two yards away. In the broad, deep shadow he was invisible. A longing seized him to knock the man's cap off his head and tell him to keep his word and eat it. But Simon was too near, and it was madness to risk the chase that must follow. Angelot laughed to himself as he slipped from that shadow to the next, the officer yawning desperately the while.

There was something unearthly about Les Chouettes in the moonlight. It seemed to float like a fairy dwelling, with its slim tower and high windows, on a snowy ocean of sand. The woods, dark guarding phalanxes of tall oaks and firs, seemed marshalled on the slopes for its defence. Angelot came down upon it by the old steep lane, having slipped across from the ruined farm to a vineyard, along by a tall hedge into another wood of low scrub and bracken, then into the road a hundred yards above the house. Before he reached it he heard the horses kicking in the stable, then a low bark from the nearest dog which he answered by softly whistling a familiar tune.

In consequence of this all the dogs about the place came running to meet him, softly patting over the sand, and it was on this group, standing under her window in the midnight stillness, that Riette looked out a few minutes later.

Something woke her, she did not know what, but this little watcher's sleep was always of the lightest, and she had not long fallen asleep, her eyelashes still wet with tears for Angelot. The window creaked as she opened it, leaning out into the moonlight.

"Is it you, my Ange? But they said—"

"I have escaped," said Angelot. "Quick, let me in! They may be following me."

"But go round to papa's window, dearest! And what business have the dogs there? Ah—do you hear, you wicked things? Go back to your places."

The dogs looked up, dropped their ears and tails, slunk away each to his corner. Only the dog who guarded Riette's end of the house remained; he stretched himself on the sand, slapped it with his tail, lolled out his tongue as if laughing.

"Don't you think my uncle will shoot me before he looks at me, if I attack his window?" said Angelot. "And in any case, I dare hardly ask him to take me in. He has not forgiven me. But you could hide me, Riette! or at least you could give me something to eat before I take to the woods again."

"My boy!" the odd little figure in the flannel gown leaned farther out, and the dark cropped head was turned one way and the other, listening. "Go round into the north wood and wait as near papa's window as you can. I will go down to him. I think he cannot be asleep; he must be thinking of you."

"Merci!" said Angelot, and walked away.

But he did not go into the wood. He stole round very gently to where, in spite of the moon, he saw a light shining in Monsieur Joseph's uncurtained window. The guardian dog rubbed himself against his legs as he stood there.

Monsieur Joseph's room was panelled and furnished with the plainest wood. His bed was in the alcove at the back; the only ornament was the portrait of his wife, a dark, Italian-looking woman, which hung surrounded by guns, pistols, and swords, over the low stone mantelpiece. It was just midnight, but Monsieur Joseph was not in bed. He looked a quaint figure, in a dressing-gown and a tasselled night-cap, and he sat at the table writing a long letter. He started when Riette touched the door, and Angelot saw that his hand moved mechanically towards a pair of pistols that lay beside him. Monsieur Joseph did not trust entirely to his dogs for defence.

In she came, with bare white feet stepping lightly over the polished floor. Angelot moved back a pace or two that he might not hear what they said to each other. When Monsieur Joseph hastily opened the window, Riette had been sent back summarily to her room, and Angelot was waiting halfway to the wood.

"Come in, Ange! why do you stand there?" the little uncle exclaimed under his breath. "Sapristi, how do you know that you are not watched?"

"I think not, Uncle Joseph. And I fancy the fellows who caught me will hardly follow me here," said Angelot, stepping into the room. "You will forgive me for coming?"

"Where could you go? Come, come, tell me everything. Why—what did those devils of police want with you? Shut the window and draw the curtain—there, now we are safe. I was just writing to César d'Ombré. Do you know—here is a secret—he means to get away to England, and from there to the Princes. He is right; there is not much to be done here. You shall go with him!"

"Shall I?" said Angelot, vaguely. "Well, Uncle Joseph—it does not much matter where I go."

Joseph de la Marinière swore his biggest oath.

"What are you staying here for?" he said. "To be caught on one side by a young lady, on the other by the police!"

"Give me something to eat, Uncle Joseph, or I shall die of hunger between you all," said Angelot, smiling at him.

The little gentleman shook his head. Angelot was not forgiven, not at all; even Riette had hardly been restored to favour, to ordinary meals in polite society.

"I will give you something to eat if I can find anything without calling Gigot," he said. "Riette thinks there is a pie in the pantry. Come into the gun-room; the light will not be seen there. And tell me what you have done to get yourself arrested, troublesome fellow! Not even a real honest bit of Chouannerie, I am afraid."