t now the Prefect was asking a last direction as to the road, and
wishing Angelot good-night, for the sun was actually setting. His last
words were: "Adieu, my friend! Be prudent--and make my best compliments
to your parents. No doubt we shall meet soon at Lancilly."

"And perhaps without Monsieur le General!" said Angelot, smiling.

"Possibly! We are not inseparable," the Prefect replied, and waved his
hand kindly as he rode away.

"How was it that I did not strike that reptile? he tried to strike me,"
Angelot reflected as he walked down the quiet lane. "Well! the Prefect
and my father would have been vexed, and he had his little punishment.
Some day we shall meet independently, and then we shall see, Monsieur
Ratoneau, we shall see! But what a somersault the creature made! If the
bushes had not broken his fall, he would have been hurt, or killed,
perhaps."

He laughed at the remembrance of the scene, and thought how he would
describe it to his mother. Then he became grave, remembering all that
had gone before. The Prefect was a friend, and a gentleman, neither of
which the General could ever be. But it was a serious thought that the
Prefect was at present by far the most dangerous person of the two.
Uncle Joseph's life and liberty were in his hands, at his mercy.
Angelot frowned and whistled as he strode along. How did the Prefect
find out all that? Why, of course, those men of his were not mere
gendarmes; they were police spies. Especially that one with the
villanous face who was lurking round the woods!

"We are all in their hands; they are the devil's own regiment," Angelot
said to himself. "How can Monsieur de Mauves bring himself to do such
work among his old friends, in his old country! It is inconceivable."

Another rough lane brought Angelot into the rough road that led past the
Manor of La Mariniere to the church and village lying beneath it, and so
on into the valley and across the bridge to Lancilly.

The home of his family was one of those large homesteads, half farm,
half castle, which are entirely Angevin in character; and it had not yet
crumbled down into picturesque decay. Its white walls, once capable of
defence, covered a large space on the eastern slope of the valley; it
was much shaded all about by oak, beech, and fir trees, and a tall row
of poplars bordered the road between its gateway and the church spire.

The high white arch of the gateway, where a gate had once been, opened
on a paved