e unknown could pardon the folly of the
chase.

I bade the innkeeper to take a seat at the fire, and soon we fell to
chatting like ladies' maids. He was a Norman and curious as a cat. He
opened his inquiries delicately.

"You have ridden far and fast to-day, my sir. Your horses were all but
done for. Yet there is no cloud of war in the sky and you are too far
from Paris to be honourable envoys. I hope you like our country?"

I dodged his tentative attempt at prying by asking him a question
myself.

"You don't seem to have many guests, good host? Yet do I hardly wonder
at it. You are all but swallowed up in the green and too far from the
main travelled road."

The little man sighed and said in sad accents: "Too true, yet the
Scarlet Dragon was once a thriving place, a fine money-breeding house.
Before my son went away--"

I interrupted him. "Your son, what is he, and where is he now?"

The other became visibly agitated and puffed at his pipe some minutes
before replying.

"Alas! worthy sir," he said at last in a lower key, "my son dare not
return here for reasons I cannot divulge. Indeed, this was no cheerful
house for the boy. He had his ambitions and he left me to pursue them."

"What does he do, this youngster?" interrupted Michael, in his gruffest
tones. The landlord started.

"Indeed, good sir, I could not tell you, for I know not myself."

"Humph!" grunted my sullen companion; but I observed his suspicious
little eyes fixed persistently on the man of the inn.

I turned the talk, which had threatened to languish. The old man did not
relish the questions about his son, and began deploring the poor crops.
At this juncture an indefinable feeling that we were losing time in
stopping at this lonely place came over me. I am not superstitious, but
I swear that I felt ill at ease and confused in my plans.

On bended knee I had sworn to my lady that I would bring back to her the
fugitive unharmed, and I would never return to her empty-handed,
confessing failure. Michael's queer behaviour disconcerted me. From the
outset of the chase he had turned sour and inaccessible, and now he was
so ill-tempered that I feared he would pick a quarrel at the slightest
provocation with our host.

With a strange sinking at the heart I asked about our horses.

"They will be attended to, my sirs; my servant is a good boy. He is
handy, although he can't get about lively, for he was thrown in a turnip
field from our only donke