M. Perrelet acted with singular promptitude.
"Imbeciles! no, I am not to be stopped for any senseless questions! Sacrebleu! you know who I am—Dr. Perrelet from Arbelles, and I am off in a tearing hurry to the farm of La Claviere. What?—this is the boy who fetched me, of course! Let go the mare's head—she'll have me in the ditch! And every moment you delay me——"
A lantern flashed. "It's M. Perrelet all right," said a gruff voice. "Let go!" The surgeon slashed at the mare, who plunged, and the lantern light rocked past Laurent's face without revealing it. They were off again.
Laurent drew a long breath. "Monsieur Perrelet, you ought to be a general! I suppose this is the last place they would expect to find me. But if Guitton discovers——"
"Je m'en fiche de lui," observed the little doctor with great calm. "Now, I wonder if those gentry have been looking for you over at La Baussaine, and worrying that lad of mine—you're both of you nothing but lads to me. Short of that, it is better than anything one could have hoped for, that the place should be searched while you are out of it."
And when they got there, they found that this desirable thing had really come to pass. Laurent was rewarded, therefore, for having run into danger by being preserved from it. No, said Madeleine, they had not troubled much about M. le Vicomte; their business was not, they said, with the red-haired renegade, whatever they meant by that word—and anyhow M. Aymar's hair was not red! She thought that he was rather better the last hour or so; at any rate, he was quite sensible.
Aymar was, indeed, to Laurent's great relief, much more himself; he gave M. Perrelet his most charming smile as he stretched out a hot, dry hand and began to thank him for coming, a proceeding which the latter soon cut short.
"No—and M. de Courtomer doesn't want any thanks, either! Be quiet, young man! Have you got a pain there when you breathe—or there? I thought so. Have you been coughing?—Monsieur de Courtomer, oblige me by going to bed! No; I will not have you here to-night; it is not necessary."
But the moment his back was turned L'Oiseleur beckoned.
"How could you do it, Laurent!" he whispered, seizing his hands. "I should never have consented if I had known. No man ever had a friend like you! . . . But I will not try to thank you; it has gone beyond thanks between you and me now!"