aid Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, slowly.

"Is there a pass-word?" asked Michu.

"'France and Charles' for the soldiers, 'Laurence and Louis' for the
Messieurs d'Hauteserre and Simeuse. Good God! to think that I saw them
yesterday for the first time in eleven years, and that now they are in
danger of death--and what a death! Michu," she said, with a melancholy
look, "be as prudent during the next fifteen hours as you have been
grand and devoted during the last twelve years. If disaster were to
overtake my cousins now I should die of it--No," she added, quickly, "I
would live long enough to kill Bonaparte."

"There will be two of us to do that when all is lost," said Michu.

Laurence took his rough hand and wrung it warmly, as the English do.
Michu looked at his watch; it was midnight.

"We must leave here at any cost," he said. "Death to the gendarme who
attempts to stop me! And you, madame la comtesse, without presuming
to dictate, ride back to Cinq-Cygne as fast as you can. The police are
there by this time; fool them! delay them!"

The hole once opened, Michu flung himself down with his ear to the
earth; then he rose precipitately. "The gendarmes are at the edge of the
forest towards Troyes!" he said. "Ha, I'll get the better of them yet!"

He helped the countess to come out, and replaced the stones. When this
was done he heard her soft voice telling him she must see him mounted
before mounting herself. Tears came to the eyes of the stern man as
he exchanged a last look with his young mistress, whose own eyes were
tearless.

"Fool them! yes, he is right!" she said when she heard him no longer.
Then she darted towards Cinq-Cygne at full gallop.

CHAPTER VIII. TRIALS OF THE POLICE

Madame d'Hauteserre, roused by the danger of her sons, and not believing
that the Revolution was over, but still fearing its summary justice,
recovered her senses by the violence of the same distress which made
her lose them. Led by an agonizing curiosity she returned to the salon,
which presented a picture worthy of the brush of a genre painter. The
abbe, still seated at the card-table and mechanically playing with the
counters, was covertly observing Corentin and Peyrade, who were standing
together at a corner of the fireplace and speaking in a low voice.
Several times Corentin's keen eye met the not less keen glance of the
priest; but, like two adversaries who knew themselves equally strong,
and who return to their guard af