Philippe’s first impulse was to answer in the negative; but a sudden idea struck him that he might turn the reply to good account.
‘A lady left here in a carriage about ten minutes ago,’ he said.
‘Peste!’ exclaimed the guard. ‘M. Desgrais, the exempt of the Maréchaussée, has just arrived at the prefecture, with an order to arrest a Parisian lady, whom he has followed since last evening and this must be her. He has sent messengers to every hotel in the town to stop her. Do you know which road she took?’
‘The end of her journey was Beauvais,’ said Philippe, throwing the guard completely off the scent; ‘the horses were to go to Bois de Lihus.’
‘That is sufficient,’ said the other. ‘I am obliged to you.’
And having apparently got all the information he wanted, he returned to the prefecture, without seeing the landlady, who came to obey his summons within two minutes after he had left.
‘So,’ thought Philippe, ‘they are got rid of for three leagues and a half at least. The seven, there and back, will give madame plenty of time to steal a march upon them, which they will not readily make up. And now I had better look to myself.’
There was nothing to settle at the inn, so Philippe lounged idly out of the salle à manger into the street, where the full bustle and activity of the day’s business was beginning to get into play. On arriving at the Place, he found many of the market-carts about to return into the country. Several were going back towards Senlis; but not caring to travel the same route by which he had arrived at Compiègne, for many obvious reasons, he made a bargain with the owner of one of them to carry him to Joulzy, from whence he could easily get to Soissons, and return to Paris by an entirely different route.
CHAPTER XXXII.
OFFEMONT TO LIÉGE—AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE—THE SANCTUARY
Within an hour of leaving the poste at Compiègne the Marchioness had traversed a portion of the Forêt de l’Aigue and arrived at Offemont, at her château. Here no longer any difficulty existed in procuring the means of proceeding onward. The horses in the stable were fresh, and prepared for hard work; the servants were attached to her, from her having resided so much with them, up to the death of M. d’Aubray; and a change of dress, from her hurried costume to more suitable habiliments for the journey, somewhat refreshed her.