reasure.

"There is nothing here, mon Colonel," said a gruff voice out of the
darkness, after a while.

A loud curse broke from de Marmont's lips.

"You are satisfied?" asked the Comte coldly, "that I have told you the
truth?"

"Search the luggage in the boot," cried de Marmont savagely, without
heeding him, "search the men on the box! bring more light here! That
money is somewhere in this coach, I'll swear. If I do not find it I'll
take every one here back a prisoner to Grenoble . . . or . . ."

He paused, himself ashamed of what he had been about to say.

"Or you will order your soldiers to lay hands upon our persons, is that
it, M. de Marmont?" broke in Crystal coldly.

He made no reply, for of a truth that had been his thought: foiled in
his hope of rendering his beloved Emperor so signal a service, he had
lost all sense of chivalry in this overwhelming feeling of baffled rage.

Crystal's cold challenge recalled him to himself, and now he felt
ashamed of what he had just contemplated, ashamed, too, of what he had
done. He hated the Comte . . . he hated all royalists and all enemies of
the Emperor . . . but he hated the Comte doubly because of the insults
which he (de Marmont) had had to endure that evening at Brestalou. He
had looked upon this expedition as a means of vengeance for those
insults, a means, too, of showing his power and his worth before Crystal
and of winning her through that power which the Emperor had given him,
and through that worth which the Emperor had recognised.

But, though he hated the Comte he knew him to be absolutely incapable of
telling a deliberate lie, and absolutely incapable of bartering his word
of honour for the sake of his own safety.

Crystal's words brought this knowledge back to his mind; and now the
desire seized him to prove himself as chivalrous as he was powerful. He
was one of those men who are so absolutely ignorant of a woman's nature
that they believe that a woman's love can be won by deeds as apart from
personality, and that a woman's dislike and contempt can be changed into
love. He loved Crystal more absolutely now than he had ever done in the
days when he was practically her accepted suitor: his unbridled and
capricious nature clung desperately to that which he could not hold, and
since he had felt--that evening at Brestalou--that his political
convictions had placed an insuperable barrier between himself and
Crystal de Cambray, he felt that no woman on e