ance."

The three associates looked at each other.

"He is cleverer than I thought for, that big cuirassier!" said
Gaubertin. "Well, come to breakfast. After all, the game is not lost,
only postponed; it is your affair now, Rigou."

Soudry and Rigou drove back disappointed, not being able as yet to plan
any other catastrophe to serve their ends and relying, as Gaubertin
advised, on what might turn up. Like certain Jacobins at the outset of
the Revolution who were furious with Louis XVI.'s conciliations, and
who provoked severe measures at court in the hope of producing anarchy,
which to them meant fortune and power, the formidable enemies of General
Montcornet staked their present hopes on the severity which Michaud and
his keepers were likely to employ against future depredators.
Gaubertin promised them his assistance, without explaining who were his
co-operators, for he did not wish them to know about his relations with
Sibilet. Nothing can equal the prudence of a man of Gaubertin's stamp,
unless it be that of an ex-gendarme or an unfrocked priest. This plot
could not have been brought to a successful issue,--a successfully
evil issue,--unless by three such men as these, steeped in hatred and
self-interest.

CHAPTER V. VICTORY WITHOUT A FIGHT

Madame Michaud's fears were the effect of that second sight which
comes of true passion. Exclusively absorbed by one only being, the soul
finally grasps the whole moral world which surrounds that being; it
sees clearly. A woman when she loves feels the same presentiments which
disquiet her later when a mother.

While the poor young woman listened to the confused voices coming from
afar across an unknown space, a scene was really happening in the tavern
of the Grand-I-Vert which threatened her husband's life.

About five o'clock that morning early risers had seen the gendarmerie of
Soulanges on its way to Conches. The news circulated rapidly; and those
whom it chiefly interested were much surprised to learn from others, who
lived on high ground, that a detachment commanded by the lieutenant of
Ville-aux-Fayes had marched through the forest of Les Aigues. As it was
a Monday, there were already good reasons why the peasants should be
at the tavern; but it was also the eve of the anniversary of the
restoration of the Bourbons, and though the frequenters of Tonsard's
den had no need of that "august cause" (as they said in those days) to
explain their presence at the G