"A clever boy you must have been!"
"Morbleu!" growled Jacquot; "a lover does not like to be laughed at."
"In such a humour, Monsieur Jacquot, what in the name of goodness brings you to me?"
"Say rather badness, mademoiselle, and it may better suit your disposition."
"Indeed! are you jealous of anyone again? Monsieur de Boisguiller and his hussars are now gone to Rennes."
"Yes; but the spark who walks with you on the north terrace in the twilight——"
"O ciel! what are you saying?"
"Yes, and whom I have caught so often lurking among the shrubbery and in the avenue at night; he, at least, is not gone to Rennes. An ugly fellow he is too, with a mark like a bullet-hole in each cheek. Eh, Mademoiselle Angelique, what say you to this?"
I did not hear the girl's reply, and they moved away from the room adjoining mine; but I had heard enough to cause me intense alarm. I had been twice on the north terrace in the evening with Angelique; but who was the lurker detected by Jacquot in the shrubbery and avenue?
"An ugly fellow with a mark like a bullet-hole in each cheek!" My heart foreboded in a moment that he must be the ruffian Hautois.