2. One of Fouche's Ideas - Part 5

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_ The sailor, his mother, and Corentin awaited Mademoiselle de Verneuil, whom the landlord went to summon. But the handsome traveller did not come. The youth expected that she would make difficulties, and he left the room, humming the popular song, "Guard the nation's safety," and went to that of Mademoiselle de Verneuil, prompted by a keen desire to get the better of her scruples and take her back with him. Perhaps he wanted to solve the doubts which filled his mind; or else to exercise the power which all men like to think they wield over a pretty woman.

"May I be hanged if he's a Republican," thought Corentin, as he saw him go. "He moves his shoulders like a courtier. And if that's his mother," he added, mentally, looking at Madame du Gua, "I'm the Pope! They are Chouans; and I'll make sure of their quality."

The door soon opened and the young man entered, holding the hand of Mademoiselle de Verneuil, whom he led to the table with an air of self-conceit that was nevertheless courteous. The devil had not allowed that hour which had elapsed since the lady's arrival to be wasted. With Francine's assistance, Mademoiselle de Verneuil had armed herself with a travelling-dress more dangerous, perhaps, than any ball-room attire. Its simplicity had precisely that attraction which comes of the skill with which a woman, handsome enough to wear no ornaments, reduces her dress to the position of a secondary charm. She wore a green gown, elegantly cut, the jacket of which, braided and frogged, defined her figure in a manner that was hardly suitable for a young girl, allowing her supple waist and rounded bust and graceful motions to be fully seen. She entered the room smiling, with the natural amenity of women who can show a fine set of teeth, transparent as porcelain between rosy lips, and dimpling cheeks as fresh as those of childhood. Having removed the close hood which had almost concealed her head at her first meeting with the young sailor, she could now employ at her ease the various little artifices, apparently so artless, with which a woman shows off the beauties of her face and the grace of her head, and attracts admiration for them. A certain harmony between her manners and her dress made her seem so much younger than she was that Madame du Gua thought herself beyond the mark in supposing her over twenty. The coquetry of her apparel, evidently worn to please, was enough to inspire hope in the young man's breast; but Mademoiselle de Verneuil bowed to him, as she took her place, with a slight inclination of her head and without looking at him, putting him aside with an apparently light-hearted carelessness which disconcerted him. This coolness might have seemed to an observer neither caution nor coquetry, but indifference, natural or feigned. The candid expression on the young lady's face only made it the more impenetrable. She showed no consciousness of her charms, and was apparently gifted with the pretty manners that win all hearts, and had already duped the natural self-conceit of the young sailor. Thus baffled, the youth returned to his own seat with a sort of vexation.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil took Francine, who accompanied her, by the hand and said, in a caressing voice, turning to Madame de Gua: "Madame, will you have the kindness to allow this young girl, who is more a friend than a servant to me, to sit with us? In these perilous times such devotion as hers can only be repaid by the heart; indeed, that is very nearly all that is left to us."

Madame du Gua replied to the last words, which were said half aside, with a rather unceremonious bow that betrayed her annoyance at the beauty of the new-comer. Then she said, in a low voice, to her son: "'Perilous times,' 'devotion,' 'madame,' 'servant'! that is not Mademoiselle de Verneuil; it is some girl sent here by Fouche."

The guests were about to sit down when Mademoiselle de Verneuil noticed Corentin, who was still employed in a close scrutiny of the mother and son, who were showing some annoyance at his glances.

"Citizen," she said to him, "you are no doubt too well bred to dog my steps. The Republic, when it sent my parents to the scaffold, did not magnanimously provide me with a guardian. Though you have, from extreme and chivalric gallantry accompanied me against my will to this place" (she sighed), "I am quite resolved not to allow your protecting care to become a burden to you. I am safe now, and you can leave me."

She gave him a fixed and contemptuous look. Corentin understood her; he repressed the smile which almost curled the corners of his wily lips as he bowed to her respectfully.

"Citoyenne," he said, "it is always an honor to obey you. Beauty is the only queen a Republican can serve."

Mademoiselle de Verneuil's eyes, as she watched him depart, shone with such natural pleasure, she looked at Francine with a smile of intelligence which betrayed so much real satisfaction, that Madame du Gua, who grew prudent as she grew jealous, felt disposed to relinquish the suspicions which Mademoiselle de Verneuil's great beauty had forced into her mind.

"It may be Mademoiselle de Verneuil, after all," she whispered to her son.

"But that escort?" answered the young man, whose vexation at the young lady's indifference allowed him to be cautious. "Is she a prisoner or an emissary, a friend or an enemy of the government?"

Madame du Gua made a sign as if to say that she would soon clear up the mystery.

However, the departure of Corentin seemed to lessen the young man's distrust, and he began to cast on Mademoiselle de Verneuil certain looks which betrayed an immoderate admiration for women, rather than the respectful warmth of a dawning passion. The young girl grew more and more reserved, and gave all her attentions to Madame du Gua. The youth, angry with himself, tried, in his vexation, to turn the tables and seem indifferent. Mademoiselle de Verneuil appeared not to notice this manoeuvre; she continued to be simple without shyness and reserved without prudery.

This chance meeting of personages who, apparently, were not destined to become intimate, awakened no agreeable sympathy on either side. There was even a sort of vulgar embarrassment, an awkwardness which destroyed all the pleasure which Mademoiselle de Verneuil and the young sailor had begun by expecting. But women have such wonderful conventional tact, they are so intimately allied with each other, or they have such keen desires for emotion, that they always know how to break the ice on such occasions. Suddenly, as if the two beauties had the same thought, they began to tease their solitary knight in a playful way, and were soon vying with each other in the jesting attention which they paid to him; this unanimity of action left them free. At the end of half an hour, the two women, already secret enemies, were apparently the best of friends. The young man then discovered that he felt as angry with Mademoiselle de Verneuil for her friendliness and freedom as he had been with her reserve. In fact, he was so annoyed by it that he regretted, with a sort of dumb anger, having allowed her to breakfast with them.

"Madame," said Mademoiselle de Verneuil, "is your son always as gloomy as he is at this moment?"

"Mademoiselle," he replied, "I ask myself what is the good of a fleeting happiness. The secret of my gloom is the evanescence of my pleasure."

"That is a madrigal," she said, laughing, "which rings of the Court rather than the Polytechnique."

"My son only expressed a very natural thought, mademoiselle," said Madame du Gua, who had her own reasons for placating the stranger.

"Then laugh while you may," said Mademoiselle de Verneuil, smiling at the young man. "How do you look when you have really something to weep for, if what you are pleased to call a happiness makes you so dismal?"

This smile, accompanied by a provoking glance which destroyed the consistency of her reserve, revived the youth's feelings. But inspired by her nature, which often impels a woman to do either too much or too little under such circumstances, Mademoiselle de Verneuil, having covered the young man with that brilliant look full of love's promises, immediately withdrew from his answering expression into a cold and severe modesty,--a conventional performance by which a woman sometimes hides a true emotion. In a moment, a single moment, when each expected to see the eyelids of the other lowered, they had communicated to one another their real thoughts; but they veiled their glances as quickly as they had mingled them in that one flash which convulsed their hearts and enlightened them. Confused at having said so many things in a single glance, they dared no longer look at each other. Mademoiselle de Verneuil withdrew into cold politeness, and seemed to be impatient for the conclusion of the meal.

"Mademoiselle, you must have suffered very much in prison?" said Madame du Gua.

"Alas, madame, I sometimes think that I am still there."

"Is your escort sent to protect you, mademoiselle, or to watch you? Are you still suspected by the Republic?"

Mademoiselle felt instinctively that Madame du Gua had no real interest in her, and the question alarmed her.

"Madame," she replied, "I really do not know myself the exact nature of my relations to the Republic."

"Perhaps it fears you?" said the young man, rather satirically.

"We must respect her secrets," interposed Madame du Gua.

"Oh, madame, the secrets of a young girl who knows nothing of life but its misfortunes are not interesting."

"But," answered Madame du Gua, wishing to continue a conversation which might reveal to her all that she wanted to know, "the First Consul seems to have excellent intentions. They say that he is going to remove the disabilities of the /emigres/."

"That is true, madame," she replied, with rather too much eagerness, "and if so, why do we rouse Brittany and La Vendee? Why bring civil war into France?"

This eager cry, in which she seemed to share her own reproach, made the young sailor quiver. He looked earnestly at her, but was unable to detect either hatred or love upon her face. Her beautiful skin, the delicacy of which was shown by the color beneath it, was impenetrable. A sudden and invincible curiosity attracted him to this strange creature, to whom he was already drawn by violent desires.

"Madame," said Mademoiselle de Verneuil, after a pause, "may I ask if you are going to Mayenne?"

"Yes, mademoiselle," replied the young man with a questioning look.

"Then, madame," she continued, "as your son serves the Republic" (she said the words with an apparently indifferent air, but she gave her companions one of those furtive glances the art of which belongs to women and diplomatists), "you must fear the Chouans, and an escort is not to be despised. We are now almost travelling companions, and I hope you will come with me to Mayenne."

Mother and son hesitated, and seemed to consult each other's faces.

"I am not sure, mademoiselle," said the young man, "that it is prudent in me to tell you that interests of the highest importance require our presence to-night in the neighborhood of Fougeres, and we have not yet been able to find a means of conveyance; but women are so naturally generous that I am ashamed not to confide in you. Nevertheless," he added, "before putting ourselves in your hands, I ought to know whether we shall get out of them safe and sound. In short, mademoiselle, are you the sovereign or the slave of your Republican escort? Pardon my frankness, but your position does not seem to me exactly natural--"

"We live in times, monsieur, when nothing takes place naturally. You can accept my proposal without anxiety. Above all," she added, emphasizing her words, "you need fear no treachery in an offer made by a woman who has no part in political hatreds."

"A journey thus made is not without danger," he said, with a look which gave significance to that commonplace remark.

"What is it you fear?" she answered, smiling sarcastically. "I see no peril for any one."

"Is this the woman who a moment ago shared my desires in her eyes?" thought the young man. "What a tone in her voice! she is laying a trap for me."

At that instant a shrill cry of an owl which appeared to have perched on the chimney top vibrated in the air like a warning.

"What does that mean?" said Mademoiselle de Verneuil. "Our journey together will not begin under favorable auspices. Do owls in these woods screech by daylight?" she added, with a surprised gesture.

"Sometimes," said the young man, coolly. "Mademoiselle," he continued, "we may bring you ill-luck; you are thinking of that, I am sure. We had better not travel together."

These words were said with a calmness and reserve which puzzled Mademoiselle de Verneuil.

"Monsieur," she replied, with truly aristocratic insolence, "I am far from wishing to compel you. Pray let us keep the little liberty the Republic leaves us. If Madame were alone, I should insist--"

The heavy step of a soldier was heard in the passage, and the Commandant Hulot presently appeared in the doorway with a frowning brow.

"Come here, colonel," said Mademoiselle de Verneuil, smiling and pointing to a chair beside her. "Let us talk over the affairs of State. But what is the matter with you? Are there Chouans here?"

The commandant stood speechless on catching sight of the young man, at whom he looked with peculiar attention.

"Mamma, will you take some more hare? Mademoiselle, you are not eating," said the sailor to Francine, seeming busy with the guests.

But Hulot's astonishment and Mademoiselle de Verneuil's close observation had something too dangerously serious about them to be ignored.

"What is it, citizen?" said the young man, abruptly; "do you know me?"

"Perhaps I do," replied the Republican.

"You are right; I remember you at the School."

"I never went to any school," said the soldier, roughly. "What school do you mean?"

"The Polytechnique."

"Ha, ha, those barracks where they expect to make soldiers in dormitories," said the veteran, whose aversion for officers trained in that nursery was insurmountable. "To what arm do you belong?"

"I am in the navy."

"Ha!" cried Hulot, smiling vindictively, "how many of your fellow-students are in the navy? Don't you know," he added in a serious tone, "that none but the artillery and the engineers graduate from there?"

The young man was not disconcerted.

"An exception was made in my favor, on account of the name I bear," he answered. "We are all naval men in our family."

"What is the name of your family, citizen?" asked Hulot.

"Du Gua Saint-Cyr."

"Then you were not killed at Mortagne?"

"He came very near being killed," said Madame du Gua, quickly; "my son received two balls in--"

"Where are your papers?" asked Hulot, not listening to the mother.

"Do you propose to read them?" said the young man, cavalierly; his blue eye, keen with suspicion, studied alternately the gloomy face of the commandant and that of Mademoiselle de Verneuil.

"A stripling like you to pretend to fool me! Come, produce your papers, or--"

"La! la! citizen, I'm not such a babe as I look to be. Why should I answer you? Who are you?"

"The commander of this department," answered Hulot.

"Oh, then, of course, the matter is serious; I am taken with arms in my hand," and he held a glass full of Bordeaux to the soldier.

"I am not thirsty," said Hulot. "Come, your papers."

At that instant the rattle of arms and the tread of men was heard in the street. Hulot walked to the window and gave a satisfied look which made Mademoiselle de Verneuil tremble. That sign of interest on her part seemed to fire the young man, whose face had grown cold and haughty. After feeling in the pockets of his coat he drew forth an elegant portfolio and presented certain papers to the commandant, which the latter read slowly, comparing the description given in the passport with the face and figure of the young man before him. During this prolonged examination the owl's cry rose again; but this time there was no difficulty whatever in recognizing a human voice. The commandant at once returned the papers to the young man, with a scoffing look.

"That's all very fine," he said; "but I don't like the music. You will come with me to headquarters."

"Why do you take him there?" asked Mademoiselle de Verneuil, in a tone of some excitement.

"My good lady," replied the commandant, with his usual grimace, "that's none of your business."

Irritated by the tone and words of the old soldier, but still more at the sort of humiliation offered to her in presence of a man who was under the influence of her charms, Mademoiselle de Verneuil rose, abandoning the simple and modest manner she had hitherto adopted; her cheeks glowed and her eyes shone as she said in a quiet tone but with a trembling voice: "Tell me, has this young man met all the requirements of the law?"

"Yes--apparently," said Hulot ironically.

"Then, I desire that you will leave him, /apparently/, alone," she said. "Are you afraid he will escape you? You are to escort him with me to Mayenne; he will be in the coach with his mother. Make no objection; it is my will--Well, what?" she added, noticing Hulot's grimace; "do you suspect him still?"

"Rather."

"What do you want to do with him?"

"Oh, nothing; balance his head with a little lead perhaps. He's a giddy-pate!" said the commandant, ironically.

"Are you joking, colonel?" cried Mademoiselle de Verneuil.

"Come!" said the commandant, nodding to the young man, "make haste, let us be off."

At this impertinence Mademoiselle de Verneuil became calm and smiling.

"Do not go," she said to the young man, protecting him with a gesture that was full of dignity.

"Oh, what a beautiful head!" said the youth to his mother, who frowned heavily.

Annoyance, and many other sentiments, aroused and struggled with, did certainly bring fresh beauties to the young woman's face. Francine, Madame du Gua, and her son had all risen from their seats. Mademoiselle de Verneuil hastily advanced and stood between them and the commandant, who smiled amusedly; then she rapidly unfastened the frogged fastenings of her jacket. Acting with that blindness which often seizes women when their self-love is threatened and they are anxious to show their power, as a child is impatient to play with a toy that has just been given to it, she took from her bosom a paper and presented it to Hulot.

"Read that," she said, with a sarcastic laugh.

Then she turned to the young man and gave him, in the excitement of her triumph, a look in which mischief was mingled with an expression of love. Their brows cleared, joy flushed each agitated face, and a thousand contradictory thoughts rose in their hearts. Madame du Gua noted in that one look far more of love than of pity in Mademoiselle de Verneuil's intervention; and she was right. The handsome creature blushed beneath the other woman's gaze, understanding its meaning, and dropped her eyelids; then, as if aware of some threatening accusation, she raised her head proudly and defied all eyes. The commandant, petrified, returned the paper, countersigned by ministers, which enjoined all authorities to obey the orders of this mysterious lady. Having done so, he drew his sword, laid it across his knees, broke the blade, and flung away the pieces.

"Mademoiselle, you probably know what you are about; but a Republican has his own ideas, and his own dignity. I cannot serve where women command. The First Consul will receive my resignation to-morrow; others, who are not of my stripe, may obey you. I do not understand my orders and therefore I stop short,--all the more because I am supposed to understand them."

There was silence for a moment, but it was soon broken by the young lady, who went up to the commandant and held out her hand, saying, "Colonel, though your beard is somewhat long, you may kiss my hand; you are, indeed, a man!"

"I flatter myself I am, mademoiselle," he replied, depositing a kiss upon the hand of this singular young woman rather awkwardly. "As for you, friend," he said, threatening the young man with his finger, "you have had a narrow escape this time."

"Commandant," said the youth, "it is time all this nonsense should cease; I am ready to go with you, if you like, to headquarters."

"And bring your invisible owl, Marche-a-Terre?"

"Who is Marche-a-Terre?" asked the young man, showing all the signs of genuine surprise.

"Didn't he hoot just now?"

"What did that hooting have to do with me, I should like to know? I supposed it was your soldiers letting you know of their arrival."

"Nonsense, you did not think that."

"Yes, I did. But do drink that glass of Bordeaux; the wine is good."

Surprised at the natural behaviour of the youth and also by the frivolity of his manners and the youthfulness of his face, made even more juvenile by the careful curling of his fair hair, the commandant hesitated in the midst of his suspicions. He noticed that Madame du Gua was intently watching the glances that her son gave to Mademoiselle de Verneuil, and he asked her abruptly: "How old are you, /citoyenne/?"

"Ah, Monsieur l'officier," she said, "the rules of the Republic are very severe; must I tell you that I am thirty-eight?"

"May I be shot if I believe it! Marche-a-Terre is here; it was he who gave that cry; you are Chouans in disguise. God's thunder! I'll search the inn and make sure of it!"

Just then a hoot, somewhat like those that preceded it, came from the courtyard; the commandant rushed out, and missed seeing the pallor that covered Madame du Gua's face as he spoke. Hulot saw at once that the sound came from a postilion harnessing his horses to the coach, and he cast aside his suspicions, all the more because it seemed absurd to suppose that the Chouans would risk themselves in Alencon. He returned to the house confounded.

"I forgive him now, but later he shall pay dear for the anxiety he has given us," said the mother to the son, in a low voice, as Hulot re-entered the room.

The brave old officer showed on his worried face the struggle that went on in his mind betwixt a stern sense of duty and the natural kindness of his heart. He kept his gruff air, partly, perhaps, because he fancied he had deceived himself, but he took the glass of Bordeaux, and said: "Excuse me, comrade, but your Polytechnique does send such young officers--"

"The Chouans have younger ones," said the youth, laughing.

"For whom did you take my son?" asked Madame du Gua.

"For the Gars, the leader sent to the Chouans and the Vendeans by the British cabinet; his real name is Marquis de Montauran."

The commandant watched the faces of the suspected pair, who looked at each other with a puzzled expression that seemed to say: "Do you know that name?" "No, do you?" "What is he talking about?" "He's dreaming."

The sudden change in the manner of Marie de Verneuil, and her torpor as she heard the name of the royalist general was observed by no one but Francine, the only person to whom the least shade on that young face was visible. Completely routed, the commandant picked up the bits of his broken sword, looked at Mademoiselle de Verneuil, whose ardent beauty was beginning to find its way to his heart, and said: "As for you, mademoiselle, I take nothing back, and to-morrow these fragments of my sword will reach Bonaparte, unless--"

"Pooh! what do I care for Bonaparte, or your republic, or the king, or the Gars?" she cried, scarcely repressing an explosion of ill-bred temper.

A mysterious emotion, the passion of which gave to her face a dazzling color, showed that the whole world was nothing to the girl the moment that one individual was all in all to her. But she suddenly subdued herself into forced calmness, observing, like a trained actor, that the spectators were watching her. The commandant rose hastily and went out. Anxious and agitated, Mademoiselle de Verneuil followed him, stopped him in the corridor, and said, in an almost solemn tone: "Have you any good reason to suspect that young man of being the Gars?"

"God's thunder! mademoiselle, that fellow who rode here with you came back to warn me that the travellers in the mail-coach had all been murdered by the Chouans; I knew that, but what I didn't know was the name of the murdered persons,--it was Gua de Saint-Cyr!"

"Oh! if Corentin is at the bottom of all this, nothing surprises me," she cried, with a gesture of disgust.

The commandant went his way without daring to look at Mademoiselle de Verneuil, whose dangerous beauty began to affect him.

"If I had stayed two minutes longer I should have committed the folly of taking back my sword and escorting her," he was saying to himself as he went down the stairs.

As Madame du Gua watched the young man, whose eyes were fixed on the door through which Mademoiselle de Verneuil had passed, she said to him in a low voice: "You are incorrigible. You will perish through a woman. A doll can make you forget everything. Why did you allow her to breakfast with us? Who is a Demoiselle de Verneuil escorted by the Blues, who accepts a breakfast from strangers and disarms an officer with a piece of paper hidden in the bosom of her gown like a love-letter? She is one of those contemptible creatures by whose aid Fouche expects to lay hold of you, and the paper she showed the commandant ordered the Blues to assist her against you."

"Eh! madame," he replied in a sharp tone which went to the lady's heart and turned her pale; "her generous action disproves your supposition. Pray remember that the welfare of the king is the sole bond between us. You, who have had Charette at your feet must find the world without him empty; are you not living to avenge him?"

The lady stood still and pensive, like one who sees from the shore the wreck of all her treasures, and only the more eagerly longs for the vanished property.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil re-entered the room; the young man exchanged a smile with her and gave her a glance full of gentle meaning. However uncertain the future might seem, however ephemeral their union, the promises of their sudden love were only the more endearing to them. Rapid as the glance was, it did not escape the sagacious eye of Madame du Gua, who instantly understood it; her brow clouded, and she was unable to wholly conceal her jealous anger. Francine was observing her; she saw the eyes glitter, the cheeks flush; she thought she perceived a diabolical spirit in the face, stirred by some sudden and terrible revulsion. But lightning is not more rapid, nor death more prompt than this brief exhibition of inward emotion. Madame du Gua recovered her lively manner with such immediate self-possession that Francine fancied herself mistaken. Nevertheless, having once perceived in this woman a violence of feeling that was fully equal to that of Mademoiselle de Verneuil, she trembled as she foresaw the clash with which such natures might come together, and the girl shuddered when she saw Mademoiselle de Verneuil go up to the young man with a passionate look and, taking him by the hand, draw him close beside her and into the light, with a coquettish glance that was full of witchery.

"Now," she said, trying to read his eyes, "own to me that you are not the citizen du Gua Saint-Cyr."

"Yes, I am, mademoiselle."

"But he and his mother were killed yesterday."

"I am very sorry for that," he replied, laughing. "However that may be, I am none the less under a great obligation to you, for which I shall always feel the deepest gratitude and only wish I could prove it to you."

"I thought I was saving an /emigre/, but I love you better as a Republican."

The words escaped her lips as it were impulsively; she became confused; even her eyes blushed, and her face bore no other expression than one of exquisite simplicity of feeling; she softly released the young man's hand, not from shame at having pressed it, but because of a thought too weighty, it seemed, for her heart to bear, leaving him drunk with hope. Suddenly she appeared to regret this freedom, permissible as it might be under the passing circumstances of a journey. She recovered her conventional manner, bowed to the lady and her son, and taking Francine with her, left the room. When they reached their own chamber Francine wrung her hands and tossed her arms, as she looked at her mistress, saying: "Ah, Marie, what a crowd of things in a moment of time! who but you would have such adventures?"

Mademoiselle de Verneuil sprang forward and clasped Francine round the neck.

"Ah! this is life indeed--I am in heaven!"

"Or hell," retorted Francine.

"Yes, hell if you like!" cried Mademoiselle de Verneuil. "Here, give me your hand; feel my heart, how it beats. There's fever in my veins; the whole world is now a mere nothing to me! How many times have I not seen that man in my dreams! Oh! how beautiful his head is--how his eyes sparkle!"

"Will he love you?" said the simple peasant-woman, in a quivering voice, her face full of sad foreboding.

"How can you ask me that!" cried Mademoiselle de Verneuil. "But, Francine, tell me," she added throwing herself into a pose that was half serious, half comic, "will it be very hard to love me?"

"No, but will he love you always?" replied Francine, smiling.

They looked at each other for a moment speechless,--Francine at revealing so much knowledge of life, and Marie at the perception, which now came to her for the first time, of a future of happiness in her passion. She seemed to herself hanging over a gulf of which she had wanted to know the depth, and listening to the fall of the stone she had flung, at first heedlessly, into it.

"Well, it is my own affair," she said, with the gesture of a gambler. "I should never pity a betrayed woman; she has no one but herself to blame if she is abandoned. I shall know how to keep, either living or dead, the man whose heart has once been mine. But," she added, with some surprise and after a moment's silence, "where did you get your knowledge of love, Francine?"

"Mademoiselle," said the peasant-woman, hastily, "hush, I hear steps in the passage."

"Ah! not /his/ steps!" said Marie, listening. "But you are evading an answer; well, well, I'll wait for it, or guess it."

Francine was right, however. Three taps on the door interrupted the conversation. Captain Merle appeared, after receiving Mademoiselle de Verneuil's permission to enter.

With a military salute to the lady, whose beauty dazzled him, the soldier ventured on giving her a glance, but he found nothing better to say than: "Mademoiselle, I am at your orders."

"Then you are to be my protector, in place of the commander, who retires; is that so?"

"No, my superior is the adjutant-major Gerard, who has sent me here."

"Your commandant must be very much afraid of me," she said.

"Beg pardon, mademoiselle, Hulot is afraid of nothing. But women, you see, are not in his line; it ruffled him to have a general in a mob-cap."

"And yet," continued Mademoiselle de Verneuil, "it was his duty to obey his superiors. I like subordination, and I warn you that I shall allow no one to disobey me."

"That would be difficult," replied Merle, gallantly.

"Let us consult," said Mademoiselle de Verneuil. "You can get fresh troops here and accompany me to Mayenne, which I must reach this evening. Shall we find other soldiers there, so that I might go on at once, without stopping at Mayenne? The Chouans are quite ignorant of our little expedition. If we travel at night, we can avoid meeting any number of them, and so escape an attack. Do you think this feasible?"

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"What sort of road is it between Mayenne and Fougeres?"

"Rough; all up and down, a regular squirrel-wheel."

"Well, let us start at once. As we have nothing to fear near Alencon, you can go before me; we'll join you soon."

"One would think she had seen ten years' service," thought Merle, as he departed. "Hulot is mistaken; that young girl is not earning her living out of a feather-bed. Ten thousand carriages! if I want to be adjutant-major I mustn't be such a fool as to mistake Saint-Michael for the devil."

During Mademoiselle de Verneuil's conference with the captain, Francine had slipped out for the purpose of examining, through a window of the corridor, the spot in the courtyard which had excited her curiosity on arriving at the inn. She watched the stable and the heaps of straw with the absorption of one who was saying her prayers to the Virgin, and she presently saw Madame du Gua approaching Marche-a-Terre with the precaution of a cat that dislikes to wet its feet. When the Chouan caught sight of the lady, he rose and stood before her in an attitude of deep respect. This singular circumstance aroused Francine's curiosity; she slipped into the courtyard and along the walls, avoiding Madame du Gua's notice, and trying to hide herself behind the stable door. She walked on tiptoe, scarcely daring to breathe, and succeeded in posting herself close to Marche-a-Terre, without exciting his attention.

"If, after all this information," the lady was saying to the Chouan, "it proves not to be her real name, you are to fire upon her without pity, as you would on a mad dog."

"Agreed!" said Marche-a-Terre.

The lady left him. The Chouan replaced his red woollen cap upon his head, remained standing, and was scratching his ear as if puzzled when Francine suddenly appeared before him, apparently by magic.

"Saint Anne of Auray!" he exclaimed. Then he dropped his whip, clasped his hands, and stood as if in ecstasy. A faint color illuminated his coarse face, and his eyes shone like diamonds dropped on a muck-heap. "Is it really the brave girl from Cottin?" he muttered, in a voice so smothered that he alone heard it. "You /are/ fine," he said, after a pause, using the curious word, "godaine," a superlative in the dialect of those regions used by lovers to express the combination of fine clothes and beauty.

"I daren't touch you," added Marche-a-Terre, putting out his big hand nevertheless, as if to weigh the gold chain which hung round her neck and below her waist.

"You had better not, Pierre," replied Francine, inspired by the instinct which makes a woman despotic when not oppressed. She drew back haughtily, after enjoying the Chouan's surprise; but she compensated for the harshness of her words by the softness of her glance, saying, as she once more approached him: "Pierre, that lady was talking to you about my young mistress, wasn't she?"

Marche-a-Terre was silent; his face struggled, like the dawn, between clouds and light. He looked in turn at Francine, at the whip he had dropped, and at the chain, which seemed to have as powerful an attraction for him as the Breton girl herself. Then, as if to put a stop to his own uneasiness, he picked up his whip and still kept silence.

"Well, it is easy to see that that lady told you to kill my mistress," resumed Francine, who knew the faithful discretion of the peasant, and wished to relieve his scruples.

Marche-a-Terre lowered his head significantly. To the Cottin girl that was answer enough.

"Very good, Pierre," she said; "if any evil happens to her, if a hair of her head is injured, you and I will have seen each other for the last time; for I shall be in heaven, and you will go to hell."

The possessed of devils whom the Church in former days used to exorcise with great pomp were not more shaken and agitated than Marche-a-Terre at this prophecy, uttered with a conviction that gave it certainty. His glance, which at first had a character of savage tenderness, counteracted by a fanaticism as powerful in his soul as love, suddenly became surly, as he felt the imperious manner of the girl he had long since chosen. Francine interpreted his silence in her own way.

"Won't you do anything for my sake?" she said in a tone of reproach.

At these words the Chouan cast a glance at his mistress from eyes that were black as a crow's wing.

"Are you free?" he asked in a growl that Francine alone could have understood.

"Should I be here if I were not?" she replied indignantly. "But you, what are you doing here? Still playing bandit, still roaming the country like a mad dog wanting to bite. Oh! Pierre, if you were wise, you would come with me. This beautiful young lady, who, I ought to tell you, was nursed when a baby in our home, has taken care of me. I have two hundred francs a year from a good investment. And Mademoiselle has bought me my uncle Thomas's big house for fifteen hundred francs, and I have saved two thousand beside."

But her smiles and the announcement of her wealth fell dead before the dogged immovability of the Chouan.

"The priests have told us to go to war," he replied. "Every Blue we shoot earns one indulgence."

"But suppose the Blues shoot you?"

He answered by letting his arms drop at his sides, as if regretting the poverty of the offering he should thus make to God and the king.

"What will become of me?" exclaimed the young girl, sorrowfully.

Marche-a-Terre looked at her stupidly; his eyes seemed to enlarge; tears rolled down his hairy cheeks upon the goatskin which covered him, and a low moan came from his breast.

"Saint Anne of Auray!--Pierre, is this all you have to say to me after a parting of seven years? You have changed indeed."

"I love you the same as ever," said the Chouan, in a gruff voice.

"No," she whispered, "the king is first."

"If you look at me like that I shall go," he said.

"Well, then, adieu," she replied, sadly.

"Adieu," he repeated.

He seized her hand, wrung it, kissed it, made the sign of the cross, and rushed into the stable, like a dog who fears that his bone will be taken from him.

"Pille-Miche," he said to his comrade. "Where's your tobacco-box?"

"Ho! /sacre bleu/! what a fine chain!" cried Pille-Miche, fumbling in a pocket constructed in his goatskin.

Then he held out to Marche-a-Terre the little horn in which Bretons put the finely powdered tobacco which they prepare themselves during the long winter nights. The Chouan raised his thumb and made a hollow in the palm of his hand, after the manner in which an "Invalide" takes his tobacco; then he shook the horn, the small end of which Pille-Miche had unscrewed. A fine powder fell slowly from the little hole pierced in the point of this Breton utensil. Marche-a-Terre went through the same process seven or eight times silently, as if the powder had power to change the current of his thoughts. Suddenly he flung the horn to Pille-Miche with a gesture of despair, and caught up a gun which was hidden in the straw.

"Seven or eight shakes at once! I suppose you think that costs nothing!" said the stingy Pille-Miche.

"Forward!" cried Marche-a-Terre in a hoarse voice. "There's work before us."

Thirty or more Chouans who were sleeping in the straw under the mangers, raised their heads, saw Marche-a-Terre on his feet, and disappeared instantly through a door which led to the garden, from which it was easy to reach the fields. _

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