"If you talked till next year, Monsieur," retorted Laurent scornfully and impolitely, "you would not get me to believe that it is Colonel Guitton's excessive highmindedness which has led him to do what he has done to-day! He has never forgiven M. de la Rocheterie for baulking him over du Tremblay's plans. There is personal vengeance behind his abominable action."
"Yes," said Rigault thoughtfully, "I believe you are right. It is not so much what La Rocheterie has done, as what he refused to do. . . . But, with regard to his turning out, he had his money, you know, Monsieur de Courtomer. He could have gone to the village inn, if he had chosen, instead of starting off to nowhere along the Saint-Caradec road."
Laurent became very attentive. "He went along the Saint-Caradec road?"
"Yes. He turned to the right at the château gates."
"You are sure of that? Naturally I am interested to know where he has gone."
"Naturally. Yes, I know he did. The fact is," said Lieutenant Rigault, looking out of the window, "that I happened to be in the avenue at the time—by pure chance, I assure you; I was not there as a spectator of . . . misfortune. Well, when La Rocheterie got to the gates—he had no escort then—the sentry would not let him pass; evidently he had no orders to that effect. I foresaw that he might be turned back, and have to come up the avenue again, and that would have been cruel. So I hurried down and told the sentry that he was released; and I saw, therefore, that he turned along the Saint-Caradec road."
At that absence of explicit orders—intentional, he felt sure—Laurent had ground his teeth. And how many had been in the avenue to watch him? "I wonder he ever reached the gates at all," he muttered savagely. "Did he look very much exhausted?"
"I must confess that I would not have backed him to go much farther," admitted the young Imperialist. "Indeed, I think he was holding on to the gate when I got there, but when he saw me he stood up straight and thanked me very civilly." He paused a moment, and then added, it seemed against his will, "I admit that I am puzzled by him. I cannot square what he has done with . . . what he seems to be."
But Laurent was not so elated by this confession as he might have been in earlier days. What did it matter now? He said nothing, and Rigault went on, "I watched him to the bend—about a furlong it is—he was walking very slowly, but fairly steadily."
"What is along that road?" enquired Laurent in a gloomy and exasperated voice.