A young, loose-limbed lieutenant of chasseurs à cheval standing by said, with a significant lift of the eyebrows, "Still in that room, sir."
"Ah," said his superior. "Well, I hope he is in it to some purpose. I think that this officer then, had best go up there to M. Perrelet, to have his hurt dressed, and meanwhile we can consider where to lodge him.—We are rather full for the next few days; you must excuse us, Monsieur le Comte."
"I am your prisoner," responded Laurent rather stiffly, disliking the effect which his title appeared to be making on this certainly not aristocratic foe.
"Rigault," said the latter to the young officer who had spoken, "take a couple of men and conduct M. de Courtomer upstairs. I am to understand that you definitely withdraw your parole now, Monsieur?"
"Definitely, Monsieur le Colonel."
But when the chasseur returned with two soldiers the Colonel announced that he had changed his mind, and would go with the prisoner himself, as he wished to speak to the doctor.
They mounted the noble staircase together. At the top they met an orderly, of whom the Colonel asked if M. Perrelet were along there, indicating a certain passage. The man replied that the surgeon had just left the room for a moment, but would soon return; on which his commanding officer told him to inform him that there was a captured Royalist officer there awaiting his services. Then, followed by the two soldiers, he went down the passage with his prisoner, talking as he went.
"I must apologize, Monsieur de Courtomer, for asking you to see the doctor in this particular room, but he is very much taken up with a wounded prisoner who occupies it, and he has his dressings and so forth there. But of course I shall have you put elsewhere when he has done what is necessary for you."
"Oh," said Laurent cheerfully, "I am not averse to company, sir, if the prisoner in question is not too ill for it."
The Colonel shrugged his shoulders. "It is not on his account that I would not quarter you there, though he is very ill, but on quite another—that on which I really feel apologies are due to you for being required to spend even a few minutes in his society." He broke off as he stopped at a door on his right hand, and beckoned to the soldiers. "One of you must stand sentry here while this officer is within, and the door must be locked, now. . . . No," he resumed to Laurent, his hand on the door knob, "I should not dream of leaving you with this man, officer of your own side though he is, for I am sorry to say he has just turned traitor—betrayed his own men into an ambush four days ago, and was himself shot yesterday by those that were left." And seeing Laurent's look of incredulity and aversion, he added, "Yes, he was found tied up to a tree, all but dead, outside his own headquarters. The doctor, at my request, has been doing his best for him since yesterday evening, but it seems doubtful if he will live . . . fortunately for himself, perhaps."