“How? You surely were not there when I passed?”
“Yes, but I was, though. Did you not see the woodcutter, with his blouse on his arm, lighting his pipe at the door of the guardhouse?”
“Yes; but you can't mean that it was you.”
“Do you remember his saying, 'Buy a cheap charretie of wood, Lieutenant; I 'll leave it at your quarters? '”
“De Beauvais,” said I, gravely, “these risks may be fatal to us both. My orders are positive; and if I disobey them, there are no powerful friends nor high relatives to screen me from a deserving punishment.”
“What folly you speak, Burke! If I did not know you better, I should say you grudged me the hospitality I have myself asked you for. One night to rest,—and I need it much, if you knew but all,—and one day to speak to Marie, and you have done with me. Is that too much?”
“No,—not if I did not betray a trust in sheltering you, far too little to speak of, much less thank me for. But—”
“Do spare me these scruples, and let us take the shortest way to your quarters. A supper and three chairs to sleep on, are worth all your arguments, eloquent though they be.”
We walked on together, almost in silence: I overwhelmed with fear for the result should my conduct ever become known; he evidently chagrined at my reception of him, and little disposed to make allowances for scruples he would not have respected himself.
“So here we are at last,” said he, as he threw himself on my little sofa, seemingly worn out with exhaustion. I had now time to look at him by the light, and almost started back at the spectacle that presented itself. His dress, which was that of the meanest peasant, was ragged and torn; his shoes scarce held together with coarse thongs; and his beard, unshaven for weeks past, increased the haggard look of features where actual want and starvation seemed impressed.