e 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'Ombre 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 Chateau 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'Ombre 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 Mariniere, I suppose?" he said.

"Ange de la Mariniere, 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 man