ent darted in the direction of her house, whither he followed her,
whistling like a man supremely satisfied. When he overtook her she was
already at the door of her house, where Galope-Chopine's little boy was
on the watch.

"Mademoiselle," said Corentin, "take the lad with you; you cannot have
a more innocent or active emissary. Boy," he added, "when you have seen
the Gars enter the house come to me, no matter who stops you; you'll
find me at the guard-house and I'll give you something that will make
you eat cake for the rest of your days."

At these words, breathed rather than said in the child's ear, Corentin
felt his hand squeezed by that of the little Breton, who followed
Mademoiselle de Verneuil into the house.

"Now, my good friends, you can come to an explanation as soon as you
like," cried Corentin when the door was closed. "If you make love, my
little marquis, it will be on your winding-sheet."

But Corentin could not bring himself to let that fatal house completely
out of sight, and he went to the Promenade, where he found the
commandant giving his last orders. By this time it was night. Two hours
went by; but the sentinels posted at intervals noticed nothing that
led them to suppose the marquis had evaded the triple line of men
who surrounded the three sides by which the tower of Papegaut was
accessible. Twenty times had Corentin gone from the Promenade to the
guard-room, always to find that his little emissary had not appeared.
Sunk in thought, the spy paced the Promenade slowly, enduring the
martyrdom to which three passions, terrible in their clashing, subject
a man,--love, avarice, and ambition. Eight o'clock struck from all the
towers in the town. The moon rose late. Fog and darkness wrapped in
impenetrable gloom the places where the drama planned by this man
was coming to its climax. He was able to silence the struggle of his
passions as he walked up and down, his arms crossed, and his eyes fixed
on the windows which rose like the luminous eyes of a phantom above the
rampart. The deep silence was broken only by the rippling of the Nancon,
by the regular and lugubrious tolling from the belfries, by the heavy
steps of the sentinels or the rattle of arms as the guard was hourly
relieved.

"The night's as thick as a wolf's jaw," said the voice of Pille-Miche.

"Go on," growled Marche-a-Terre, "and don't talk more than a dead dog."

"I'm hardly breathing," said the Chouan.

"If the man who made tha