e
and well, except for a wound in the leg, which causes him considerable
suffering, but which will be healed in two or three weeks. My
son-in-law, who was hunting yesterday in the mountains, met him near the
frontier in company with two of his friends. By this time he must be in
Piedmont, beyond the reach of the gendarmes."

"Let us hope now," said the abbe, "that we shall soon hear what has
become of Jean."

"I know, already, Monsieur," responded Marie-Anne; "my brother has been
badly wounded, and he is now under the protection of kind friends."

She bowed her head, almost crushed beneath her burden of sorrow, but
soon rallying, she exclaimed:

"What am I doing! What right have I to think of my friends, when upon
my promptness and upon my courage depends the life of an innocent man
compromised by them?"

Maurice, the abbe, and the officers surrounded the brave young girl.
They wished to know what she was about to attempt, and to dissuade her
from incurring useless danger.

She refused to reply to their pressing questions. They wished to
accompany her, or, at least, to follow her at a distance, but she
declared that she must go alone.

"I will return in less than two hours, and then we can decide what must
be done," said she, as she hastened away.

To obtain an audience with the Duc de Sairmeuse was certainly a
difficult matter; Maurice and the abbe had proved that only too well
the previous day. Besieged by weeping and heart-broken families, he shut
himself up securely, fearing, perhaps, that he might be moved by their
entreaties.

Marie-Anne knew this, but it did not alarm her. Chanlouineau had given
her a word, the same which he had used; and this word was a key which
would unlock the most firmly and obstinately locked doors.

In the vestibule of the house occupied by the Duc de Sairmeuse, three or
four valets stood talking.

"I am the daughter of Monsieur Lacheneur," said Marie-Anne, addressing
one of them. "I must speak to the duke at once, on matters connected
with the revolt."

"The duke is absent."

"I came to make a revelation."

The servant's manner suddenly changed.

"In that case follow me, Mademoiselle."

She followed him up the stairs and through two or three rooms. At last
he opened a door, saying, "enter." She went in.

It was not the Duc de Sairmeuse who was in the room, but his son,
Martial.

Stretched upon a sofa, he was reading a paper by the light of a large
candelabra.