the prison with scant
ceremony.

The officer attended the Deputy to the door of his cabriolet, and in
his hearing Caron bade the coachman drive to the Porte St. Martin. This,
however, was no more than a subterfuge to which he was resorting with a
view to baffling the later possibility of their being traced. Ombreval
naturally enough plied him with questions as they went, to which La
Boulaye returned such curt answers that in the end, discouraged and
offended, the nobleman became silent.

Arrived at the Porte St. Martin they alighted, and La Boulaye dismissed
the carriage. On foot he now led his companion as far as the church of
St. Nicholas des Champs, where he hired a second cabriolet, bidding the
man drive him to the Quai de la Greve. Having reached the riverside they
once more took a short walk, crossing by the Pont au Change, and thence
making their way towards Notre Dame, in the neighbourhood of which La
Boulaye ushered the Vicomte into a third carriage, and thinking that by
now they had done all that was needed to efface their tracks, he ordered
the man to proceed as quickly as possible to Choisy.

They arrived at that little village on the Seine an hour or so later,
and having rid themselves of their conveyance, Caron inquired and
discovered the way to the house of Citoyenne Godelliere.

Mademoiselle was within, and at sound of Caron's voice questioning
the erstwhile servant who had befriended her, she made haste to show
herself. And at a word from her, Henriette admitted the two men
and ushered them into a modest parlour, where she left them with
Mademoiselle.

La Boulaye was the first to speak.

"I trust that I have not kept you waiting overlong, Citoyenne," he said,
by way of saying something.

"Monsieur," she answered him, with a look that was full of gratitude and
kindliness "you have behaved nobly, and to my dying day I shall remember
it."

This La Boulaye deprecated by a gesture, but uttered no word as the
Vicomte now stepped forward and bore Suzanne's hand to his lips.

"Mademoiselle," said he, "Monsieur La Boulaye here was very reticent
touching the manner in which my release has been gained. But I never
doubted that I owed it to your good efforts, and that you had adopted
the course suggested to you by my letter, and bought me from the
Republic."

La Boulaye flushed slightly as much at the contemptuous tone as at the
words in which Ombreval referred to the Republic.

"It is not to me but