"A man who wore a burganet," one cried; "a rusty thing that would have disgraced the days of the Bearnais." "Fichte!" hissed another, "you have come an hour too late." "'Twas but at midnight," exclaimed a third, "that he rode through—ten minutes of midnight. And, by good chance for him, it was to-night, since 'tis the last of our New-Year carousals; to-morrow the town will be closed at dusk as usual."
"But where—where is he gone?" asked St. Georges.
"Corbleu!" exclaimed the officer, "we had no right to ask him, since both this and the other gates were open. Yet, stay; has he left the town yet? It may be not."
"Ay! but he has, though," exclaimed a boyish young officer who at this moment joined the group. "In truth, he has. I was at the north gate as he clattered up to it, calling out that he must go through. 'And why the devil must you?' I asked, not liking the fellow's tone, which sounded hollow enough through the rusty iron pot on his head. 'I have been attacked,' he said;' nigh murdered by some ruffians, and am wounded. I must get me home.' 'And where is your home?' I asked. 'Beyond Bar,' he replied; 'for Heaven's sake, do not stop me!' Whereon," continued the young officer, "since I had no right whatever to prevent his exit, I let him go, and a second afterward the clock struck midnight, and we clapped the gate behind him. Yet, ere that was done, I saw him spurring along the north road as though the devil, or a king's exempt, were after him."
"The north road!" St. Georges said in a low voice to Boussac. "The north road! You hear? And the north road leads to De Roquemaure's manoir."
CHAPTER VIII.
DRAWING NEAR.
Two days later, when again the wintry evening was fast approaching, St. Georges, by now alone, drew near to the ancient city of Troyes. So near, indeed, had he arrived that its walls and fortifications were plainly visible to him, and from its steeples the bells could be heard, either chiming the hour or summoning the inhabitants to evening worship. Beneath his cloak, as ever, he bore his precious burden, who showed no signs of being fatigued by the long journey she had made in so rough a fashion, but often woke up and, thrusting her little head from out the folds of the cloak, smiled up into the face of her father.
He had parted with Boussac at Bar, leaving him there surrounded by his comrades of two troops of the Mousquetaires Noirs, from whom he had received the joyful intelligence that they were soon to move on to Paris, to be quartered at Versailles, while two other troops of the "Gris" were to replace them—a piece of news that had given St. Georges almost as much pleasure as it had done to the other. For it seemed to him that, should aught take him away from Paris when he had left the child in the house of the Sieur Blecy in the Rue de Timoleon, there was one faithful friend on whom he could rely to keep watch over it and see to its welfare.