“Forward!” he exclaimed. He was about to set the example, when Martial seized him by the arm.
“At least you will not refuse to tell me who sent you here?”
“Who sent us? The colonel, of course, in obedience to orders from the grand prevot, Monsieur de Courtornieu. He sent the order last night. We have been hidden in that grove since daybreak. But release me—tonnerre! would you have my expedition fail entirely?”
He hurried away, and Martial, staggering like a drunken man, descended the slope, and remounted his horse.
But he did not repair to the Chateau de Sairmeuse; he returned to Montaignac, and passed the remainder of the afternoon in the solitude of his own room.
That evening he sent two letters to Sairmeuse. One to his father, the other to his wife.
CHAPTER XXXIX
Terrible as Martial imagined the scandal to be which he had created, his conception of it by no means equalled the reality.
Had a thunder-bolt burst beneath that roof, the guests at Sairmeuse could not have been more amazed and horrified.