“Wouldn’t care if they had settled you out and out,” muttered the man to himself. “Ah! there is Monsieur Gramont riding into the yard.”
“Prop me up with pillows,” said the sick man, “for he will be with me directly.”
The domestic did so, grumbling at having an office put upon him that an old woman would have done better.
“Yes, rascal,” exclaimed the irritated invalid, “le diable, for that matter, would do better than you, thankless scoundrel; your master shall hear of your insolence.”
“I don’t care who hears of it,” said the man, walking away. “You promised me five hundred francs for making Dedan a spy on her mistress, where are they?”
A few minutes afterwards Bertram Gramont, in his riding-dress, entered the chamber, closing the door after him.
“Here’s a pretty mess you have got yourself into,” said the maire, throwing himself into a chair by the bedside. “Did I not tell you to take things quietly till my return? and now here you are with your eye knocked out; and worse, our prey escaped, when I have an order from Fouché, the Minister of Police, to arrest the whole party, and send them prisoners to Paris. I may almost consider the Coulancourt estate as mine.”
“I acted for the best,” growled Augustine Vadier; “that cursed Englishman, Lieutenant Thornton, who is the very same who had the care of the casket in Toulon, was preparing to escape with that other Englishman living under the name of Lebeau. Who he is I cannot imagine; Madame Coulancourt has had him concealed in the château, and I was told was seen embracing him.”
“The diable!” interrupted Bertram Gramont, with a start. “Not a lover, surely, at her age, and with such a youth; are you sure of this, Vadier? I really am sorry to hear that you will lose the sight of your eye.”
“Lose the sight! Curse it, man, it’s knocked clean out,” exclaimed Vadier; “but if I can get on my legs soon, I will manage with the other. I am sure of what I say,” continued the wounded man. “They little suspect that their servant-girl, one of old Dame Moret’s farm domestics, is a spy upon them.”