t Montauran returned, his face pale, his eyes fixed.

"Now you shall see," said Merle, "how death can make men lively."

"Ah!" said the marquis, with a gesture as if suddenly awaking, "here you
are, my dear councillor of war," and he passed him a bottle of _vin de
Grave_.

"Oh, thanks, citizen marquis," replied Merle. "Now I can divert myself."

At this sally Madame du Gua turned to the other guests with a smile,
saying, "Let us spare him the dessert."

"That is a very cruel vengeance, madame," he said. "You forget my
murdered friend who is waiting for me; I never miss an appointment."

"Captain," said the marquis, throwing him his glove, "you are free;
that's your passport. The Chasseurs du Roi know that they must not kill
all the game."

"So much the better for me!" replied Merle, "but you are making a
mistake; we shall come to close quarters before long, and I'll not let
you off. Though your head can never pay for Gerard's, I want it and I
shall have it. Adieu. I could drink with my own assassins, but I cannot
stay with those of my friend"; and he disappeared, leaving the guests
astonished at his coolness.

"Well, gentlemen, what do you think of the lawyers and surgeons and
bailiffs who manage the Republic," said the Gars, coldly.

"God's-death! marquis," replied the Comte de Bauvan; "they have shocking
manners; that fellow presumed to be impertinent, it seems to me."

The captain's hasty retreat had a motive. The despised, humiliated
woman, who was even then, perhaps, being put to death, had so won upon
him during the scene of her degradation that he said to himself, as he
left the room, "If she is a prostitute, she is not an ordinary one, and
I'll marry her." He felt so sure of being able to rescue her from the
savages that his first thought, when his own life was given to him,
was to save hers. Unhappily, when he reached the portico, he found the
courtyard deserted. He looked about him, listened to the silence, and
could hear nothing but the distant shouts and laughter of the Chouans,
who were drinking in the gardens and dividing their booty. He turned the
corner to the fatal wing before which his men had been shot, and from
there he could distinguish, by the feeble light of a few stray lanterns,
the different groups of the Chasseurs du Roi. Neither Pille-Miche, nor
Marche-a-Terre, nor the girl were visible; but he felt himself gently
pulled by the flap of his uniform, and, turning round, saw Francine on