'Pardieu! who do I see? M. Blane of the King's Guards—M. Blane here, and dressed as an abbé!'
'Yes, Marquis—but so dressed, for a time only.'
'A strange garb for the king's most faithful soldier—and his rival too, at times, if all tales be true.'
'Marquis, permit me to observe that your remarks are very unwise.'
'Letters from Paris could tell us nothing about you—you were keeping your whereabouts so very quiet, that it was rumoured in the Garde du Corps Ecossais, you were about to become ridiculous.'
'Marquis!'
'By marrying and becoming quite a respectable person.'
'A false rumour, on my honour!' said I, reddening as I remembered the conversation in the forest last night; 'but what have you to tell me of the Garde du Corps, Marquis? Who are dead and who alive now?'
'Faith I can scarcely tell you; but I do not think the cuirassiers muster above seventy-five now. They have been carrying themselves with glory, these lords of the creation, and playing the devil in Alsace and on the Rhine. You delivered my letters to Marion de l'Orme?'
'Yes.'