Thus he no longer dared to mention her alliance to François de Montmorency, which had been formerly projected, and so Madame de Castro's mind was at rest upon that point at least.
She had, however, many other subjects of anxiety. Neither at the Montgommery mansion, nor at the Louvre, nor in fact anywhere, was any definite news of Gabriel to be had.
The young man had in a certain sense disappeared.
Days and weeks and whole months rolled by, and Diane in vain made inquiries directly and indirectly; no one could say what had become of Gabriel.
Some persons thought that they had met him, always sombre and gloomy. But no one had spoken to him; the suffering soul which they had taken for Gabriel had always shunned them, and vanished at their first attempt to approach him. Moreover, no two agreed as to the locality where they had encountered Vicomte d'Exmès. Some said at St. Germain, some at Fontainebleau, others at Vincennes, and some even located him in Paris. What reliance could be placed upon such contradictory reports?
Yet many of them were right. For Gabriel, spurred on by a terrible remembrance and by still more terrible thoughts, could not remain two days in the same place. A never-ending need of action and movement drove him from a locality as soon as he arrived there. On foot or in the saddle, in town or country, he must always be in motion, pale and forbidding in appearance, and like Orestes of old haunted by the Furies.
His wanderings, too, kept him always out-of-doors; and he never entered within the walls of a house except when driven by absolute necessity.
On one occasion, however, Master Ambroise Paré, who had come back to Paris, his patients being all cured, and hostilities somewhat relaxed in the North, was surprised by a visit at his own house from his old acquaintance Vicomte d'Exmès. He received him with the deference due to one of gentle birth and the cordiality with which one welcomes a friend.
Gabriel, like a man newly returned from foreign lands, interrogated the surgeon upon matters which everybody knew all about.
Having in the first place asked him about Martin-Guerre, who, thoroughly cured, was probably on his way to Paris at that time, he questioned him about the Duc de Guise and the army. In that quarter matters had progressed marvellously. Le Balafré was before Thionville; Maréchal de Thermes had taken Dunkirk; Gaspard de Tavannes had taken possession of Guines and the province of Oie. In fact, the English no longer held one foot of ground in the whole kingdom, as François de Lorraine had sworn should be the case.