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.