accurately, and he will hang about till he
gets a chance of delivering the second note to him, or seeing it
delivered."

"And what are we to do?" asked Paul, still sour and still thoughtful.

"As regards the Countess, nothing. If the money comes, good for you.
If not, I presume you will, at your own time, open communications with
the Count?"

"It is possible," Paul admitted.

"Very," said M. Guillaume dryly. "And as regards Dieppe our course is
very plain. I am at the rendezvous, waiting for him, by half-past six.
You will also be at, or near, the rendezvous. We will settle more
particularly how it is best to conduct matters when we see the lie of
the ground. No general can arrange his tactics without inspecting the
battlefield, eh? And moreover we can't tell what the enemy's
dispositions--or disposition--may turn out to be."

"And meanwhile there is nothing to do?"

"Nothing? On the contrary--breakfast, a smoke, and a nap," corrected
Guillaume in a contented tone. "Then, my friend, we shall be ready for
anything that may occur--for anything in the world we shall be ready."

"I wonder if you will," thought Paul de Roustache, resentfully eyeing
the glass which M. Guillaume had emptied.

It remains to add only that, on the advice and information of the
innkeeper, the Cross on the roadside up the hill behind the village had
been suggested as the rendezvous, and that seven in the evening had
seemed a convenient hour to propose for the meeting. For Guillaume had
no reason to suppose that a prior engagement would take the Captain to
the same neighbourhood at six.

CHAPTER V

THE RENDEZVOUS BY THE CROSS

Beneath the reserved and somewhat melancholy front which he generally
presented to the world, the Count of Fieramondi was of an ardent and
affectionate disposition. Rather lacking, perhaps, in resolution and
strength of character, he was the more dependent on the regard and help
of others, and his fortitude was often unequal to the sacrifices which
his dignity and his pride demanded. Yet the very pride which led him
into positions that he could not endure made it well-nigh impossible
for him to retreat. This disposition, an honourable but not altogether
a happy one, serves to explain both the uncompromising attitude which
he had assumed in his dispute with his wife, and the misery of heart
which had betrayed itself in the poem he read to Captain Dieppe, with
its indirect but touching appeal to