down one of its outside passengers at the first post-station beyond
Meaux. The traveler, an old man, after looking about him hesitatingly
for a moment or two, betook himself to a little inn opposite the
post-house, known by the sign of the Piebald Horse, and kept by the
Widow Duval--a woman who enjoyed and deserved the reputation of being
the fastest talker and the best maker of _gibelotte_ in the whole
locality.

Although the traveler was carelessly noticed by the village idlers,
and received without ceremony by the Widow Duval, he was by no means so
ordinary and uninteresting a stranger as the rustics of the place were
pleased to consider him. The time had been when this quiet, elderly,
unobtrusive applicant for refreshment at the Piebald House was trusted
with the darkest secrets of the Reign of Terror, and was admitted at
all times and seasons to speak face to face with Maximilian Robespierre
himself. The Widow Duval and the hangers-on in front of the post-house
would have been all astonished indeed if any well-informed personage
from the metropolis had been present to tell them that the modest old
traveler with the shabby little carpet-bag was an ex-chief agent of the
secret police of Paris!

Between three and four years had elapsed since Lomaque had exercised,
for the last time, his official functions under the Reign of Terror.
His shoulders had contracted an extra stoop, and his hair had all fallen
off, except at the sides and back of his head. In some other respects,
however, advancing age seemed to have improved rather than deteriorated
him in personal appearance. His complexion looked healthier, his
expression cheerfuller, his eyes brighter than they had ever been of
late years. He walked, too, with a brisker step than the step of old
times in the police office; and his dress, although it certainly did not
look like the costume of a man in affluent circumstances, was cleaner
and far more nearly worn than ever it had been in the past days of his
political employment at Paris.

He sat down alone in the inn parlor, and occupied the time, while his
hostess had gone to fetch the half-bottle of wine that he ordered, in
examining a dirty old card which he extricated from a mass of papers in
his pocket-book, and which bore, written on it, these lines:

"When the troubles are over, do not forget those who remember you with
eternal gratitude. Stop at the first post-station beyond Meaux, on the
high-road to Paris, an