and Durieu, approached
Corentin and whispered in his ear, "We are not dealing with ninnies."

Corentin answered with a look at the card-table; then he added, "They
were playing at boston! Mademoiselle's bed was just being made for the
night; she escaped in a hurry; it is a regular surprise; we shall catch
them."

CHAPTER VII. A FOREST NOOK

A breach has always a cause and a purpose. Here is the explanation of
how the one which led from the tower called that of Mademoiselle and the
stables came to be made. After his installation as Laurence's guardian
at Cinq-Cygne old d'Hauteserre converted a long ravine, through which
the water of the forest flowed into the moat, into a roadway between two
tracts of uncultivated land belonging to the chateau, by merely planting
out in it about a hundred walnut trees which he found ready in the
nursery. In eleven years these trees had grown and branched so as to
nearly cover the road, hidden already by steep banks, which ran into a
little wood of thirty acres recently purchased. When the chateau had its
full complement of inhabitants they all preferred to take this covered
way through the breach to the main road which skirted the park walls and
led to the farm, rather than go round by the entrance. By dint of thus
using it the breach in the sides of the moat had gradually been widened
on both sides, with all the less scruple because in this nineteenth
century of ours moats are no longer of the slightest use, and Laurence's
guardian had often talked of putting this one to some other purpose. The
constant crumbling away of the earth and stones and gravel had ended by
filling up the ditch, so that only after heavy rains was the causeway
thus constructed covered. But the bank was still so steep that it was
difficult to make a horse descend it, and even more difficult to get him
up upon the main road. Horses, however, seem in times of peril to share
their masters' thought.

While the young countess was hesitating to follow Marthe, and asking
explanations, Michu, from his vantage-ground watched the closing in of
the gendarmes and understood their plan. He grew desperate as time
went by and the countess did not come to him. A squad of gendarmes were
marching along the park wall and stationing themselves as sentinels,
each man being near enough to communicate with those on either side of
them, by voice and eye. Michu, lying flat on his stomach, his ear to
earth, gauged, like a red In