The Abbé dismounted, without grace, and picked it up. He seemed to have seen it before, though, after all, one sword was very much like another. Perhaps the thicket would yield some explanation of the mystery. He tied up the roan and went in.
But, in a sense, the thicket only yielded him another mystery. For, on the root of an oaktree, with a pistol lying on the ground beside him, was quietly seated M. de Brencourt, writing something on his knee. M. Chassin, having expected anything in the world but this sight, stood speechless, his cassock tucked about his waist and the drawn sword in his hand. After a moment the Comte lifted his head, looked at him, and seemed, with an effort—or that was the effect he gave—to recognise him.
“I was writing to you, Abbé,” he said. “You are the person I want.”
The voice, very flat and monotonous, was unlike his own. So was his face. His eyes were someone else’s. The Abbé did not like them.
“I have your horse, Monsieur le Comte, and your sword, I think,” he said, for want of anything better.
“Thank you,” said the stranger under the tree in his dull, slow tones. “As I am leaving the district at once it will be convenient to have them. Perhaps I had better give you this.”
And, still seated there, he handed up the piece of paper on which he had been writing. M. Chassin, advancing, took it, and read, in a nerveless handwriting, these words addressed to himself:
“You wanted me to go, and I am going—probably to join M. de Bourmont in Maine, if he will have me. He is the furthest away. I have tried to go further still, which would no doubt have pleased you better, but——” some words were scratched out here. “Since I am fulfilling your wishes, perhaps you will do me the service to report my decision in the proper quarter, and later despatch my personal effects to me, for I shall not enter the Clos-aux-Grives again.”
The Abbé, dumbfounded, looked at the writer. Something abnormal had happened: what was it? And Gaston?
“You mean this?” he stammered.