I was able by this time to go abroad a little, and I walked down to his cottage; I could learn no more there, however, than that a Capuchin monk had been his guest for two nights, and that M. le Curé had left for Cahors a few hours after the monk. That was all; I returned depressed and dissatisfied. Such villagers as I met by the way greeted me with respect, and even with sympathy--it was the first time I had gone into the hamlet; but the shadow of suspicion which I had detected on their faces some months before had grown deeper and darker with time. They no longer knew with certainty their places or mine, their rights or mine; and shy of me and doubtful of themselves, were glad to part from me.
Near the gates of the avenue I met a man whom I knew; a wine-dealer from Aulnoy. I stayed to ask him if the family were at home.
He looked at me in surprise. "No, M. le Vicomte," he said. "They left the country some weeks ago--after the King was persuaded to go to Paris."
"And M. le Baron?"
"He too."
"For Paris?"
The man, a respectable bourgeois, grinned at me. "No, Monsieur, I fancy not," he said. "You know best, M. le Vicomte; but if I said Turin, I doubt I should be little out."
"I have been ill," I said. "And have heard nothing."
"You should go into Cahors," he answered; with rough good-nature. "Most of the gentry are there--if they have not gone farther. It is safer than the country in these days. Ah, if my father had lived to see----"
He did not finish the sentence in words, but raised his eyebrows and shoulders, saluted me, and rode away. In spite of his surprise it was easy to see that the change pleased him, though he veiled his satisfaction out of civility.