“I hope, Monsieur, that you will excuse me for having followed you, when you hear what I have to say. I am not of your party; I loathe what you adore; but I have none of the passion nor the malice of your enemies. For this reason I tell you that if I were in your place I would take a journey. The frontier is but a few miles away; a good horse, a short gallop, and you have crossed it. A word to the wise is—salvation!”
And without waiting for any response, he turned and retraced his steps.
M. d’Escorval was amazed and confounded.
“One might suppose there was a conspiracy to drive me away!” he murmured. “But I have good reason to distrust the disinterestedness of this young man.”
Martial was already far off. Had he been less preoccupied, he would have perceived two figures in the wood. Mlle. Blanche de Courtornieu, followed by the inevitable Aunt Medea, had come to play the spy.
CHAPTER XVII
The Marquis de Courtornieu idolized his daughter. Everyone spoke of that as an incontestable and uncontested fact.
When persons spoke to him of his daughter, they always said:
“You, who adore your daughter——”