te their owner.

"Are you aware, my lord Marquis, that two leagues yet remain before
us?" inquired the malicious soldier. "That village down yonder must be
Baillet."

"Great heavens!" cried the Marquis d'Albon. "Go on to Cassan by all
means, if you like; but if you do, you will go alone. I prefer to wait
here, storm or no storm; you can send a horse for me from the chateau.
You have been making game of me, Sucy. We were to have a nice day's
sport by ourselves; we were not to go very far from Cassan, and go
over ground that I knew. Pooh! instead of a day's fun, you have kept me
running like a greyhound since four o'clock this morning, and nothing
but a cup or two of milk by way of breakfast. Oh! if ever you find
yourself in a court of law, I will take care that the day goes against
you if you were in the right a hundred times over."

The dejected sportsman sat himself down on one of the stumps at the
foot of the guide-post, disencumbered himself of his rifle and empty
game-bag, and heaved a prolonged sigh.

"Oh, France, behold thy Deputies!" laughed Colonel de Sucy. "Poor old
d'Albon; if you had spent six months at the other end of Siberia as I
did..."

He broke off, and his eyes sought the sky, as if the story of his
troubles was a secret between himself and God.

"Come, march!" he added. "If you once sit down, it is all over with
you."

"I can't help it, Philip! It is such an old habit in a magistrate! I am
dead beat, upon my honor. If I had only bagged one hare though!"

Two men more different are seldom seen together. The civilian, a man
of forty-two, seemed scarcely more than thirty; while the soldier, at
thirty years of age, looked to be forty at the least. Both wore the red
rosette that proclaimed them to be officers of the Legion of Honor. A
few locks of hair, mingled white and black, like a magpie's wing,
had strayed from beneath the Colonel's cap; while thick, fair curls
clustered about the magistrate's temples. The Colonel was tall, spare,
dried up, but muscular; the lines in his pale face told a tale of
vehement passions or of terrible sorrows; but his comrade's jolly
countenance beamed with health, and would have done credit to an
Epicurean. Both men were deeply sunburnt. Their high gaiters of brown
leather carried souvenirs of every ditch and swamp that they crossed
that day.

"Come, come," cried M. de Sucy, "forward! One short hour's march, and we
shall be at Cassan with a good dinner before us