"Probably not, but why the devil do you stop me in the road at nightfall, then? Ah, I remember you said you wrote to me."
"Yes."
"To tell me what?"
"That you were a coward if you—"
"Wretch!" exclaimed Raoul, starting his horse.
But Madame Bastien's son struck the horse in the head with the barrel of his gun, forcing him to stop.
Raoul, a trifle startled at first, but really curious to know what the stranger was coming at, calmed himself, and remarked, coldly:
"You did me the honour to write to me, you say?"
"Yes, to tell you that if you were not a coward, you would come to Grand Sire's Rock to-day with your gun loaded like mine."
"And may I ask what we were to do with our guns?"