"Well, mon ami, it was reported in the Chroniques Scandaleuses at Versailles and Paris, that the young countess, then Mademoiselle de Broglie, had a lover disguised as her soubrette, and that the fellow actually carried her off. Thus you see how rumour wove you and the outlaw Hautois into one."
"Rumour might have added, that it was revenue for Bourgneuf's abduction of the sister Hautois of and the demolition of his mother's cottage that made this man the wretch we found him," said I, bitterly "But oh! Boisguiller," I added, suddenly and passionately, as the fumes of the wine mounted to my head; "you know the truth and the falsehood of this affair; you must know that I loved Jacqueline purely and honourably, that I loved her to despair, and how I sorrowed for her supposed death!"
"Ah, mon garçon! I cheated you nicely at that old chaumière in the wood, and all for the best, was it not? But pray don't give way to such outbursts here; ma foi! no, they will never do; so be wary and be off, ere worse come to pass. Bourgneuf has some fellows in his Regiment de Bretagne who would skin their own fathers—people from his own estates who would chop you into mincemeat if such were his supreme will and pleasure, and if quietly shooting you down did not suit his purpose quite as well."
I took another glass of wine and snapped my fingers, as a spirit of bravado next possessed me.
"Tell me, is the countess here?" I asked.
"Madame de Bourgneuf, née Broglie? well, she is not exactly at Ysembourg, but we shall not say where. Awkward, is it not?" said the chevalier, playing with the gold tassel of his hussar pelisse.
"Awkward!—what—how!" stammered I.
"Diable! without condescending to be more plain, my friend, I think that under all the circumstances, it is exceedingly awkward that the countess, and you, a former lover, are, with the knowledge of such a man as Bourgneuf, within a few miles of each other. How do you feel about it?"
"Simply, my dear chevalier," said I, as the wax lights began to multiply strangely, and the room seemed to swim round me, "that my naturally fine appetite is in no way impaired by the circumstance, and I have dined as well as ever I did on that deuced tough ration beef of the Hessians; and as for Monsieur de Bourgneuf——"
"He is at your service, monsieur!" said a harsh voice in my car, while a hand was laid, almost with a clutch, on my right shoulder. I turned and encountered that which sobered me in a moment; the stern and sallow face, and dark, glittering, almond-shaped, and rather wicked eyes of the Count de Bourgneuf, who had entered unseen, and had overheard, how much or how little of the past conversation, we knew not. He delivered to me a paper, saying, "Monsieur, this is your signed pass to the nearest British cantonment; and you can depart when you please, and by any route; so delay is unadvisable," he added, with a keen glance.