II
Monseigneur, on entering the study, saw a man standing there waiting for him.
"Sébastien!" he exclaimed eagerly.
The man had the bearing and appearance of a good-class domestic servant—one of those who enjoy many privileges as well as the confidence of their employer. But to a keen psychologist it would soon become obvious that the sombre, well-cut clothes and stiff, conventional demeanour cloaked a more vigorous and more individual personality. The face appeared rugged even beneath the solid mask, and the eyes had a keen, searching, at times furtive expression in them. They were the eyes of a man accustomed to feel danger dogging his footsteps, to hold his life in his own hands and to take risks which would make the pusillanimous quake.
"How long have you been here?" asked the Bishop quickly.
"Half an hour, Monseigneur. I did not dare follow His Highness too closely. The town and its neighbourhood are bristling with spies. I have had the greatest difficulty throughout the day in giving at least two prowlers the slip and drawing them off His Highness's tracks."
Monseigneur uttered an exclamation of horror.
"I thought I had one at my heels a moment ago," continued Sébastien; "just inside the gates. Someone, I felt, was dogging my footsteps. I fired a random shot into the night, and as luck would have it, I brought down my man."
"Brought down your man?" exclaimed Monseigneur eagerly. "Then——"
"Unfortunately it was not a police spy whom I shot," said Sébastien carelessly, "but Grand-Cerf, one of your keepers."
Monseigneur uttered a cry of horror.
"Grand-Cerf! I had posted him just inside the gates to watch for possible prowlers."
"I didn't know that, and I shot him," repeated Sébastien grimly.
"You killed him?"
Sébastien nodded. The matter did not appear to him to have any importance.
"Now if it had been that accursed spy——" he murmured. Then he added more earnestly: "You will have a posse of police over from Granville to-morrow, Monseigneur—they'll search this house. Somehow or other someone has got wind of the affair—I'd stake my life on it."
"Let them come," retorted the Bishop shortly. "Monsieur le Comte d'Artois will be safe behind the secret panel."
Sébastien shrugged his shoulders.
"For half an hour, yes! But if, as I believe, it is that confounded grey chap from Paris who has shadowed us, then no hiding-place or secret panel will screen us from his prying eyes. It is he who tracked down the Spaniard last November, who laid Monsieur de Saint-Tropèze low, who thwarted Mademoiselle Vaillant. Oh!" added the old Chouan, "if I only had him here between my hands——"
His powerful fingers twitched convulsively. Monseigneur shrugged his shoulders.
"That miserable little Man in Grey," he said drily, "has had the luck so far, I own, but it was because his wits were only opposed to brute force. Monsieur de Saint-Tropèze was clumsy, the Spaniard reckless, the girl Vaillant hysterical. Now we have to defend Monsieur le Comte d'Artois himself—but not with our lives, my good Sébastien—'tis our wits which are going to win the day, right under the very nose of the confounded Man in Grey."