"By Joseph Picaut."
"You know our brave Jean Oullier's repugnance to him."
"And yet he's a White," cried the widow,--"a White, who stood by and let them kill his brother."
The duchess and Bonneville both gave a start of horror.
"Then it is far better we should not mix him in our affairs," said Bonneville. "He would bring a curse with him. But have you no one we could put as sentry near the house, Madame Picaut?"
"Jean Oullier has provided some one, and I have sent my nephew on to the moor of Saint-Pierre; he can see over the whole country from there."
"But he is only a child," said the pretended peasant-woman.
"Safer than certain men," said the widow.
"After all," remarked Bonneville, "we haven't long to wait; it will be dark in three hours, and then our friends will be here with horses."
"Three hours!" said the young woman, whose mind had been painfully pre-occupied ever since her talk with the widow. "Many things may happen in three hours, my poor Bonneville."