rupted:

"May I leave you?" he asked of Robert Darzac. "Have you a key, or do you
wish me to give you this one."

"Thank you. I have a key and will lock the gate."

Larsan hurried off in the direction of the chateau, the imposing pile of
which could be perceived a few hundred yards away.

Robert Darzac, with knit brow, was beginning to show impatience. I
presented Rouletabille as a good friend of mine, but, as soon as
he learnt that the young man was a journalist, he looked at me very
reproachfully, excused himself, under the necessity of having to
reach Epinay in twenty minutes, bowed, and whipped up his horse. But
Rouletabille had seized the bridle and, to my utter astonishment,
stopped the carriage with a vigorous hand. Then he gave utterance to a
sentence which was utterly meaningless to me.

"The presbytery has lost nothing of its charm, nor the garden its
brightness."

The words had no sooner left the lips of Rouletabille than I saw Robert
Darzac quail. Pale as he was, he became paler. His eyes were fixed on
the young man in terror, and he immediately descended from the vehicle
in an inexpressible state of agitation.

"Come!--come in!" he stammered.

Then, suddenly, and with a sort of fury, he repeated:

"Let us go, monsieur."

He turned up by the road he had come from the chateau, Rouletabille
still retaining his hold on the horse's bridle. I addressed a few
words to Monsieur Darzac, but he made no answer. My looks questioned
Rouletabille, but his gaze was elsewhere.

CHAPTER VI. In the Heart of the Oak Grove

We reached the chateau, and, as we approached it, saw four gendarmes
pacing in front of a little door in the ground floor of the donjon. We
soon learned that in this ground floor, which had formerly served as
a prison, Monsieur and Madame Bernier, the concierges, were confined.
Monsieur Robert Darzac led us into the modern part of the chateau by
a large door, protected by a projecting awning--a "marquise" as it is
called. Rouletabille, who had resigned the horse and the cab to the care
of a servant, never took his eyes off Monsieur Darzac. I followed his
look and perceived that it was directed solely towards the gloved hands
of the Sorbonne professor. When we were in a tiny sitting-room fitted
with old furniture, Monsieur Darzac turned to Rouletabille and said
sharply:

"What do you want?"

The reporter answered in an equally sharp tone:

"To shake you by the hand."

Darzac shr