"M. Belmont gets up, but he has hardly read the letter which Duvallon shows him when he makes a face,—ah, monsieur, such a terrible face, that I have yet to understand how a man who had ordinarily such a kind look could ever take on such an expression of ferocity.
"Then, controlling himself, he goes up to Marie, kisses her, and says: 'Don't worry about me, my petite femme, thou shalt have news of me very soon;' then he disappeared with Duvallon, who said to us, as he went out: 'Belmont is compromised in a political affair like—carbonaro.' Yes, that is the word, carbonaro," added Madame Kerouët, in recalling her souvenirs. "'He must escape, his life depends on it. If they come here to arrest him, try and keep the commissaire here as long as possible.'
"They had hardly been gone a quarter of an hour when an officer of the gendarmerie arrives in a carriage with a commissaire of police, as they had foreseen. They ask for M. Belmont, sea captain.
"You know very well that we said never a word. They seek everywhere, but find no one, and they keep that up for at least two hours.
"The commissaire was about to give it up when some one of the company, having by accident spoken of the three-master La Belle Alexandrine, which was to sail that day from Nantes, the brigadier of gendarmerie cried out: 'And the tide is high at three o'clock! And now it is five! Before we can get back to Nantes it will be seven o'clock. If our man means to get away on that ship, he will be out of the mouth of the river by seven o'clock this evening, and beyond our reach.'
"Thereupon they all get into the carriage with the commissaire, and start back for Nantes at a gallop; but they got there too late. That poor dear Belmont had been lucky enough to embark on La Belle Alexandrine, and was off to Havana. M. Duvallon came the next day to tell us all about it.
"Alas! monsieur, misfortunes never come alone. Two months after all these events, my poor Kerouët died of lung fever.
"M. Duvallon sold the farm he owned at Thouars, and I should have been without resources if the superintendent of the château of Serval, who was acquainted with Kerouët, and knew that I was capable of managing a farm, had not proposed that I should rent this one, where I am very contented, but alas, I regret every day my poor Kerouët, and am still very uneasy as to the fate of M. Belmont, who has only written to us once by a vessel from Nantes which La Belle Alexandrine met at sea.
"In his letter, Belmont told us not to worry, and that one of these days he would return and surprise us. As for Marie, I cannot say that she grieves very much for M. Belmont, the poor dear child, she knew him too little for that; but, monsieur, I am sorry for all this on her account, for should I die to-morrow what would become of her?
"To complete all, she is so scrupulous that it is impossible to get her to decide to touch a cent of the six thousand francs which M. Belmont settled on her, and which M. Duvallon sends her every three months. We take the money to a notary at Nantes, and there it will stay until Belmont comes back again, and that will be the Lord knows when."