llowed by two attendants."

"The Viscount de Braguelonne?" said the innkeeper.

"The same."

"Then you are Monsieur Grimaud?"

The traveller nodded assent.

"Your master was here not half an hour ago," said the host. "He has
ridden on, and will sleep at Cambrin."

Grimaud sat down at a table, wiped the dust and perspiration from his
face, poured out a glass of wine, and drank in silence. He was about
to fill his glass a second time, when a loud shrill cry was heard,
issuing from the apartment in which the monk and the patient were shut
up together. Grimaud started to his feet.

"What is that?" exclaimed he.

"From the wounded man's room," replied the host.

"What wounded man?"

"The former headsman of Bethune, who has been set upon and sorely hurt
by Spanish partisans. The Viscount de Braguelonne rescued and brought
him hither, and he is now confessing himself to an Augustine friar. He
seems to suffer terribly."

"The headsman of Bethune," muttered Grimaud, apparently striving to
recollect something. "A man of fifty-five or sixty years of age, tall
and powerful; of dark complexion, with black hair and beard?"

"The same; excepting that his beard has become grey, and his hair
white. Do you know him?"

"I have seen him once," replied Grimaud gloomily.

At this moment another cry was heard, less loud than the first, but
followed by a long deep groan. Grimaud and the innkeeper looked at
each other.

"It is like the cry of a man who is being murdered," said the latter.

"We must see what it is," said Grimaud.

Although slow to speak, Grimaud was prompt in action. He rushed to the
door, and shook it violently; it was secured on the inner side.

"Open the door instantly," cried he, "or I break it down."

No answer was returned. Grimaud looked around him, and perceived a
heavy crowbar standing in a corner of the passage. This he seized hold
of, and before the host could interfere, the door was burst open. The
room was inundated with blood, which was trickling from the mattrass;
there was a hoarse rattling in the wounded man's throat; the monk had
disappeared. Grimaud hurried to an open window which looked upon the
court-yard.

"He has escaped through this," said he.

"Do you think so?" said the host. "Boy, see if the monk's mule is
still in the stable."

"It is gone," was the answer.

Grimaud approached the bed, and gazed upon the harsh and strongly
marked features of the wounded man.

"Is he st