of
the minister recurred to his mind and frightened him. Why this courier
dispatched post haste just two hours before himself?

"Oh! I was too happy," thought the young man, "and Helene was right when
she told me she had a presentiment of some great misfortune. Oh, I will
overtake this courier, and learn the message that he bears, or perish in
the attempt."

And he shot off like an arrow.

But with all these doubts and interrogations he had lost ten minutes
more, so that on arriving at the first post station he was still two
hours behind. This time the courier's horse had held out, and it was
Gaston's which was ready to drop. The inn-keeper tried to make some
remarks, but Gaston dropped two or three louis and set off again at a
gallop.

At the next posting-house he had gained a few minutes, and that was all.
The courier who was before him had not slackened his pace. Gaston
increased his own; but this frightful rapidity redoubled the young man's
fever and mistrust.

"Oh!" said he, "I _will_ arrive at the same time that he does, if I am
unable to precede him." And he doubled his speed, and spurred on his
horse, which, at every station, stopped dripping with blood and sweat,
or tumbled down exhausted. At every station he learned that the courier
had passed almost as swiftly as himself, but he always gained some few
minutes, and that sustained his strength.

Those whom he passed upon the way, leaving them far behind, pitied, in
spite of themselves, the beautiful young man, pale faced and haggard,
who flew on thus, and took neither rest, nor food, dripping with sweat,
despite the bitter cold, and whose parched lips could only frame the
words: "A horse! a horse! quick, there, a horse!"

And, in fact, exhausted, with no strength but that supplied him by his
heart, and maddened more and more by the rapidity of his course and the
feeling of danger, Gaston felt his head turn, his temples throb, and the
perspiration of his limbs was tinged with blood.

Choked by the thirst and dryness of his throat, at Ancenis he drank a
glass of water: it was the first moment he had lost during sixteen
hours, and yet the accursed courier was still an hour and a half in
advance. In eighty leagues Gaston had only gained some forty or fifty
minutes.

The night was drawing in rapidly, and Gaston, ever expecting to see some
object appear on the horizon, tried to pierce the obscurity with his
bloodshot glances; on he went, as in a dream, th