ything, and bring word of
the result."

"One of my men heard horses in the forest just as they arrested the
little groom; I've four fine fellows now on the track of whoever is
hiding there," replied the gendarme.

He left the room, and the gallop of his horse which echoed on the paved
courtyard died rapidly away.

"One thing is certain," said Corentin to himself, "either they have gone
to Paris or they are retreating to Germany."

He sat down, pulled a note-book from the pocket of his spencer, wrote
two orders in pencil, sealed them, and made a sign to one of the
gendarmes to come to him.

"Be off at full gallop to Troyes, wake up the prefect, and tell him to
start the telegraph as soon as there's light enough."

The gendarme departed. The meaning of this movement and Corentin's
intentions were so evident that the hearts of the household sank within
them; but this new anxiety was additional to another that was now
martyrizing them; their eyes were fixed on the sandal-wood box! All the
while the two agents were talking together they were each taking note of
those eager looks. A sort of cold anger stirred the unfeeling hearts of
these men who relished the power of inspiring terror. The police man has
the instincts and emotions of a hunter: but where the one employs his
powers of mind and body in killing a hare, a partridge, or a deer, the
other is thinking of saving the State, or a king, and of winning a large
reward. So the hunt for men is superior to the other class of hunting
by all the distance that there is between animals and human beings.
Moreover, a spy is forced to lift the part he plays to the level and
the importance of the interests to which he is bound. Without looking
further into this calling, it is easy to see that the man who follows
it puts as much passionate ardor into his chase as another man does into
the pursuit of game. Therefore the further these men advanced in their
investigations the more eager they became; but the expression of their
faces and their eyes continued calm and cold, just as their ideas,
their suspicions, and their plans remained impenetrable. To any one who
watched the effects of the moral scent, if we may so call it, of these
bloodhounds on the track of hidden facts, and who noted and understood
the movements of canine agility which led them to strike the truth in
their rapid examination of probabilities, there was in it all something
actually horrifying. How and why should