peered out through the trees into the narrow wood-road.
Immediately a man hailed him from somewhere among the trees, and
he shrank back, teeth set, eyes fixed in desperation.

"Who are you?" came the summons again in French. Jack did not
answer. Presently a man in a blue blouse, carrying a whip,
stepped out into the road from the bushes on the farther side of
the slope.

"Hallo!" he called, softly.

Jack looked at him. The man returned his glance with a friendly
and puzzled smile.

"What do you want?" asked Jack, suspiciously.

"Parbleu! what do you want yourself?" asked the peasant, and
showed his teeth in a frank laugh.

Jack was silent.

The peasant's eyes fell on Lorraine, leaning against a tree, her
blanched face half hidden under the masses of her hair. "Oho!" he
said--"a woman!"

Without the least hesitation he came quickly across the road and
close up to Jack.

"Thought you might be one of those German spies," he said. "Is
the lady ill? Coeur Dieu! but she is white! Monsieur, what has
happened? I am Brocard--Jean Brocard; they know me here in the
forest--"

"Eh!" broke in Jack--"you say you are Brocard the poacher?"

"Hey! That's it--Brocard, braconnier--at your service. And you
are the young nephew of the Vicomte de Morteyn, and that is the
little chatelaine De Nesville! Coeur Dieu! Have the Prussians
brutalized you, too? Answer me, Monsieur Marche--I know you and I
know the little chatelaine--oh, I know!--I, who have watched you
at your pretty love-making there in the De Nesville forest, while
I was setting my snares for pheasants and hares! Dame! One must
live! Yes, I am Brocard--I do not lie. I have taken enough game
from your uncle in my time; can I be of service to his nephew?"

He took off his cap with a merry smile, entirely frank, almost
impudent. Jack could have hugged him; he did not; he simply told
him the exact truth, word by word, slowly and without bitterness,
his arm around Lorraine, her head on his shoulder.

"Coeur Dieu!" muttered Brocard, gazing pityingly at Lorraine;
"I've half a mind to turn franc-tireur myself and drill holes in
the hides of these Prussian swine!"

He stepped out into the road and beckoned Jack and Lorraine. When
they came to his side he pointed to a stone cottage, low and
badly thatched, hidden among the trunks of the young beech
growth. A team of horses harnessed to a carriage was standing
before the door; smoke rose from the dilapidated chimney.