Then he was horribly, bitingly ashamed of himself.
He was too much obsessed by the thought of what he was going to do to allow a really prudent interval ere he descended his walnut tree, but once on terra firma he approached the house with a lagging step. As he went along the flagged passage to the kitchen he heard a sound of sobbing, and surmised that the troopers had made themselves unpleasant to Mme Allard. However, nothing seemed to matter much—not even that they had failed to find him.
Madeleine was sobbing, searching meanwhile in a press. But when she heard his step she turned round.
"Oh, Monsieur de Courtomer, an awful thing has happened!" She dabbed with her apron at her face, disfigured with crying, and Laurent ejaculated quickly "What? Tell me!"
She gulped a moment, then recovered speech. "After they had searched every hole and corner for you, everywhere you can conceive, and I had told them I had no idea where you were, they began to threaten M. Aymar if he would not tell them . . . they said the most abominable things to him . . . and at last they said that as he was a Chouan they should imitate the Chouans——"
"Imitate the Chouans—what do you mean?" exclaimed Laurent.
"What they used to do in the old days to make people speak," gasped Madeleine.
"Good God!" said the young man, turning pale, for he knew by repute of those past methods.
"—And they turned me out of M. le Vicomte's room where they had been questioning me, too, and when I came into the kitchen here there was one of them holding something in the fire—a ramrod, I think it was. I tried to get it from him and fling it away, but they held me . . ."
But Laurent was no longer there. With a cold sweat breaking out on him he was at the door of the bedroom. His horror had carried him there like a whirlwind—and then he feared to enter because of what he might find. But the first thing he saw was Aymar, raising himself a little in the bed, and saying eagerly, "Are you sure they are gone? For Heaven's sake don't show yourself——"