what has become of my father!" he exclaimed.

"The Baron d'Escorval is a prisoner, Monsieur," replied one of the
officers.

Although Maurice had expected this response, he turned pale.

"Is he wounded?" he asked, eagerly.

"He has not a scratch. But enter, sir, and pass on."

From the anxious looks of these officers one might have supposed that
they feared they should compromise themselves by conversing with the son
of so great a criminal.

The carriage rolled beneath the gate-way; but it had not traversed two
hundred yards of the Grand Rue before the abbe and Maurice had remarked
several posters and notices affixed to the walls.

"We must see what this is," they said, in a breath.

They stopped near one of these notices, before which a reader had
already stationed himself; they descended from the carriage, and read
the following order:

"article I.--The inmates of the house in which the elder Lacheneur shall
be found will be handed over to a military commission for trial.

"article II.--Whoever shall deliver the body of the elder Lacheneur,
dead or alive, will receive a reward of twenty thousand francs."

This was signed Duc de Sairmeuse.

"God be praised!" exclaimed Maurice, "Marie-Anne's father has escaped!
He had a good horse, and in two hours----"

A glance and a nudge of the elbow from the abbe checked him.

The abbe drew his attention to the man standing near them. This man was
none other than Chupin.

The old scoundrel had also recognized them, for he took off his hat to
the cure, and with an expression of intense covetousness in his eyes, he
said: "Twenty thousand francs! what a sum! A man could live comfortably
all his life on the interest of it."

The abbe and Maurice shuddered as they re-entered their carriage.

"Lacheneur is lost if this man discovers his retreat," murmured the
priest.

"Fortunately, he must have crossed the frontier before this," replied
Maurice. "A hundred to one he is beyond reach."

"And if you should be mistaken. What, if wounded and faint from loss of
blood, Lacheneur has had only strength to drag himself to the nearest
house and ask the hospitality of its inmates?"

"Oh! even in that case he is safe; I know our peasants. There is not one
who is capable of selling the life of a proscribed man."

The noble enthusiasm of youth drew a sad smile from the priest.

"You forget the dangers to be incurred by those who shelter him. Many a
man who would not soil h