And he grew thoughtful.
The mountaineers were silent; suddenly the priest's dog started and pricked up his ears. At the same moment the report of a gun echoed through the glen, and a white partridge, such as is sometimes to be seen in the mountains after a severe Winter, fell fluttering at the feet of the Curé. Then followed a crashing of underwood and a sound of rapid footsteps, and in another moment a gentleman appeared, parting the bushes and escorting a young lady who held the train of her hunting-habit thrown across her arm. The gentleman was laughing loudly, but the lady looked pale and distressed, and running towards the group under the chestnut-trees, took up the wounded bird and kissed it tenderly, exclaiming:—
"Ah, M. le Curé, you would not have killed the pretty creature if I had begged its life, would you?"
The priest coloured crimson.
"Madame," said he, falteringly, "this partridge is wounded in the wing, but is not dead. Who shot it?"
The young lady looked reproachfully at the gentleman; the gentleman shrugged his shoulders and laughed again, but less heartily than before.
"Oh, mea culpa!" he said, lightly. "I am the culprit, Monsieur l'Abbé."
CHAPTER II.
The Storm.
The Baron de Pradines, late of the Royal Musketeers and now captain in the Auvergne Dragoons, was small and fair, like his sister, and about thirty-five years of age. He looked, however, some years older, pale, ennuyé, and languid—as might be expected in a man who had spent a dissipated youth in the gayest court of Europe.