"I am happy to think that my attack was not unique. Did he ever
experience a return of it?"
"I knew him for years after, and never heard of any such thing. What
strikes me is a parallel in the predisposing causes of each attack. Your
unexpected and gallant hand-to-hand encounter, at such desperate odds,
with an experienced swordsman, like that insane colonel of dragoons,
your fatigue, and, finally, your composing yourself, as my other friend
did, to sleep."
"I wish," he resumed, "one could make out who the coquin was who
examined your letters. It is not worth turning back, however, because we
should learn nothing. Those people always manage so adroitly. I am
satisfied, however, that he must have been an agent of the police. A
rogue of any other kind would have robbed you."
I talked very little, being ill and exhausted, but the Marquis talked on
agreeably.
"We grow so intimate," said he, at last, "that I must remind you that I
am not, for the present, the Marquis d'Harmonville, but only Monsieur
Droqville; nevertheless, when we get to Paris, although I cannot see you
often I may be of use. I shall ask you to name to me the hotel at which
you mean to put up; because the Marquis being, as you are aware, on his
travels, the Hotel d'Harmonville is, for the present, tenanted only by
two or three old servants, who must not even see Monsieur Droqville.
That gentleman will, nevertheless, contrive to get you access to the box
of Monsieur le Marquis, at the Opera, as well, possibly, as to other
places more difficult; and so soon as the diplomatic office of the
Marquis d'Harmonville is ended, and he at liberty to declare himself, he
will not excuse his friend, Monsieur Beckett, from fulfilling his
promise to visit him this autumn at the Château d'Harmonville."
You may be sure I thanked the Marquis.
The nearer we got to Paris, the more I valued his protection. The
countenance of a great man on the spot, just then, taking so kind an
interest in the stranger whom he had, as it were, blundered upon, might
make my visit ever so many degrees more delightful than I had
anticipated.
Nothing could be more gracious than the manner and looks of the Marquis;
and, as I still thanked him, the carriage suddenly stopped in front of
the place where a relay of horses awaited us, and where, as it turned
out, we were to part.