k, and we neither saw nor heard
anything. Not a child can pass through this solitary valley without the
whole community knowing it, and for the last two weeks no one has come
from other places. Now the d'Hauteserre and the Simeuse brothers would
make a party of four. Old d'Hauteserre and his wife have submitted to
the present government, and they have made all imaginable efforts
to persuade their sons to return to France; they wrote to them again
yesterday. I can only say, upon my soul and conscience, that your visit
has alone shaken my firm belief that these young men are living in
Germany. Between ourselves, there is no one here, except the young
countess, who does not do justice to the eminent qualities of the First
Consul."

"Fox!" thought Corentin. "Well, if those young men are shot," he said,
aloud; "it is because their friends have willed it--I wash my hands of
the affair."

He had led the abbe to a part of the garden which lay in the moonlight,
and as he said the last words he looked at him suddenly. The priest
was greatly distressed, but his manner was that of a man surprised and
wholly ignorant.

"Understand this, monsieur l'abbe," resumed Corentin; "the right of
these young men to the estate of Gondreville will render them doubly
criminal in the eyes of the middle class. I'd like to see them put faith
in God and not in his saints--"

"Is there really a plot?" asked the abbe, simply.

"Base, odious, cowardly, and so contrary to the generous spirit of
the nation," replied Corentin, "that it will meet with universal
opprobrium."

"Well! Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne is incapable of baseness," cried the
abbe.

"Monsieur l'abbe," replied Corentin, "let me tell you this; there is for
us (meaning you and me) proof positive of her guilt; but there is not
enough for the law. You see she took flight when we came; I sent the
mayor to warn her."

"Yes, but for one who is so anxious to save them, you followed rather
closely on his heels," said the abbe.

At those words the two men looked at each other, and all was said.
Each belonged to those profound anatomists of thought to whom a mere
inflexion of the voice, a look, a word suffices to reveal a soul, just
as the Indians track their enemies by signs invisible to European eyes.

"I expected to draw something out of him, and I have only betrayed
myself," thought Corentin.

"Ha! the sly rogue!" thought the priest.

Midnight rang from the old church clock just