The traveller nodded assent.
"Your master was here not half an hour ago," said the host. "He has ridden on, and will sleep at Cambrin."
Grimaud sat down at a table, wiped the dust and perspiration from his face, poured out a glass of wine, and drank in silence. He was about to fill his glass a second time, when a loud shrill cry was heard, issuing from the apartment in which the monk and the patient were shut up together. Grimaud started to his feet.
"What is that?" exclaimed he.
"From the wounded man's room," replied the host.
"What wounded man?"
"The former headsman of Bethune, who has been set upon and sorely hurt by Spanish partisans. The Viscount de Braguelonne rescued and brought him hither, and he is now confessing himself to an Augustine friar. He seems to suffer terribly."
"The headsman of Bethune," muttered Grimaud, apparently striving to recollect something. "A man of fifty-five or sixty years of age, tall and powerful; of dark complexion, with black hair and beard?"
"The same; excepting that his beard has become grey, and his hair white. Do you know him?"
"I have seen him once," replied Grimaud gloomily.