"You need not offer me gold to induce me to help Monsieur le Comte de Bonneville."
Petit-Pierre looked at the man attentively.
"Jean Oullier!" she cried, recognizing the Marquis de Souday's keeper in the dawning light,--"Jean Oullier, can you find a safe refuge for my friend and for me close by?"
"There is no house but this within a mile or two," he said.
He spoke of it with repugnance, but Petit-Pierre either did not or would not notice the tone.
"You must guide me and carry him."
"Down there?" cried Jean Oullier.
"Yes; are not they royalists?--the persons who live in that house, I mean."
"I don't know yet," said Jean Oullier.
"Go on; I put our lives in your hands, Jean Oullier, and I know that you deserve my utmost confidence."