least on this side of the country; but Simon kept his
knowledge for future use.

It might naturally be imagined that Angelot would have found a refuge in
some of the wild old precincts of La Mariniere; but Simon soon convinced
himself that this was not the case. No mother whose son was hidden about
her home would have spent her time as Anne did, wandering restlessly
about, expecting nothing but her husband's return, or spending long
hours before the altar in the church, praying for her son's safety.
Simon began to suspect that his prisoner had got away to the west, into
Brittany, among the Chouans who were there so numerous that it was
better to leave them alone.

"Bien! his absence in any way will suit Monsieur le General," Simon
reflected. "As to that, it does not much matter. But I and my fellows
will not get our promised pay, and that signifies a great deal. I, who
have given up my furlough to serve that animal!"

So he gnawed his nails in distraction, and still watched with a sort of
fascination the little square of country where he felt more and more
afraid that Master Angelot was no longer to be found.

The sympathy that Anne de la Mariniere, in her lonely sorrow, might
have expected from the cousins at Lancilly who owed Urbain so much, she
neither asked nor found. Once or twice, Herve de Sainfoy came himself to
the manor to ask if she had any news; but his manner was a little stiff
and awkward; and Adelaide never came; and the messages he brought from
her were too evidently made by his politeness on the spur of the moment.
Was it not possible, Anne thought, to be too worldly, too unforgiving?
Had not her beautiful boy been punished enough for his presumption in
falling in love with their daughter, and behaving like a lover of the
olden time? They were even partly responsible for the arrest, she
thought, for it was to escape them that Ange had walked away with Martin
up the hill that evening.

Looking over at the great castle on the opposite hill, she accused it
bitterly of having robbed her not only of Urbain, but of Angelot.

The October days brought wilder autumn weather; the winds began to blow
in the woods, to howl at night in the wide old chimneys of La Mariniere;
sometimes the cry of a wolf, in distant depths of forest, made sportsmen
and farmers talk of the hunts of which Lancilly used long ago to be the
centre. Those days would return again, they hoped, though Count Herve
had not the energy or the