“That must have been a month ago.”
“And you never saw or heard of him again?”
“No,” answered the man.
Lory continued to write, his arm moving laboriously on the paper.
“I must have a name—of some sort,” he said, “to give my friend, the commandant.”
“Ah! I cannot give you my own. Jean Florent—since I came from St. Florent—that will do.”
De Vasselot wrote the name, folded and addressed the letter.
“There”, he said, “and I wish you good luck. Good luck in war-time may mean gold lace on your sleeve in a few months. I shall join you as soon as I can throw my leg across a horse. Will two hundred francs serve you to reach Paris?”
“Give me one hundred. I am no beggar.”
He took the letter and the bank note, shook hands, and went away as abruptly as he came. The man was a murderer, with probably more than one life to account for; and yet he carried his crimes with a certain dignity, and had, at all events, that grand manner which comes from the habit of facing life fearlessly with the odds against.