d the abbe.

"Bah?" cried Mademoiselle Goujet; "when I was twenty-three and saw I
should be an old maid all my life, I rushed about and fatigued myself
in a dozen ways. I understand how the countess can scour the country for
hours without thinking of the game. It is nearly twelve years now since
she has seen her cousins, and you know she loves them. Well, if I
were she, if I were as young and pretty, I'd make a straight line for
Germany! Poor darling, perhaps she is thinking of the frontier, and that
may be the reason why she rides so far towards it."

"You are rather giddy, Mademoiselle Goujet," said the abbe, smiling.

"Not at all," she replied. "I see you all uneasy about the goings on of
a young girl, and I am explaining them to you."

"Her cousins will submit and return soon; they will all be rich, and she
will end by calming down," said old d'Hauteserre.

"God grant it!" said his wife, taking out a gold snuff-box which had
again seen the light under the Consulate.

"There is something stirring in the neighborhood," remarked Monsieur
d'Hauteserre to the abbe. "Malin has been two days at Gondreville."

"Malin!" cried Laurence, roused by the name, though her sleep was sound.

"Yes," replied the abbe, "but he leaves to-night; everybody is
conjecturing the motive of this hasty visit."

"That man," said Laurence, "is the evil genius of our two houses."

The countess had been dreaming of her cousins and the young Hauteserres;
she saw them in peril. Her beautiful eyes grew fixed and glassy as her
mind thus warned dwelled on the dangers they were about to incur in
Paris. She rose suddenly and went to her bedroom without speaking. Her
bedroom was the best in the house; next came a dressing-room and an
oratory, in the tower which faced towards the forest. Soon after she
had left the salon the dogs barked, the bell of the small gate rang,
and Durieu rushed into the salon with a frightened face. "Here is the
mayor!" he said. "Something is the matter."

CHAPTER VI. A DOMICILIARY VISIT

The mayor, a former huntsman of the house of Simeuse, came occasionally
to the chateau, where the d'Hauteserres showed him out of policy, a
deference to which he attached great value. His name was Goulard; he had
married a rich woman of Troyes, whose property, which was in the commune
of Cinq-Cygne, he had further increased by the purchase of a fine abbey
and its lands, in which he invested all his savings. The vast abbey of
Va