Hélène searched for her father in vain. By the time she reached the other room, he had quite unaccountably vanished. As she flew on rather distractedly among the guests, hurrying back to the ball-room, her brother's peremptory hand was laid upon her arm.
"What is the matter, Hélène? Where are you running? Are you dancing with no one, and why do you look so wild?"
Hélène answered none of these questions.
"Find me a partner, if you please," she said, with a sudden effort at collecting herself. "But, Georges—no more of your officers."
Georges looked at her with a queer smile, but only said—
"And no more of your Chouans!"
CHAPTER XXIV
HOW MONSIEUR DE SAINFOY FOUND A WAY OUT
If Angelot expected to find the usual woodland stillness, that night, about the approaches to the Château de Lancilly, he was mistaken. The old place was surrounded; numbers of servants, ranks of carriages, a few gendarmes and soldiers. Half the villages were there, too, crowding about the courts, under the walls, and pressing especially round the chief entrance on the west, where a bridge over the old moat led into a court surrounded with high-piled buildings, one stately roof rising above another. Monsieur de Sainfoy kept up the old friendly fashion, and no gates shut off his neighbours from his domain.