--scornfully indeed: "Was it he? He! De
Roquemaure? _Mon Dieu_, no! Not he, indeed!"

"You know him?"

"_Know him?_ Yes. And hate him. A wild beast, _un sauvage_. See here,"
and he pointed to his face, on which was a long, discoloured stain or
bruise, "he gave me that a week or so ago, as he rode out of the inn,
because I had not brought his horse quickly enough to please him. Know
him? Oh, yes, I know him. And some day, great and strong and powerful
seigneur as he is, he shall know me. The seigneurs do not lord it over
us always. We shall see!"

"Not De Roquemaure," St. Georges mused aloud. "Not De Roquemaure.
Great God! have we more enemies than one? Into whose hands has my
little babe fallen, then?" And again he murmured to himself, "Not De
Roquemaure!"

"No, not De Roquemaure," the man replied, overhearing him. "Nor one
like him. Instead, a stranger to the town--a sour, dark-visaged man,
elderly. None too well clad nor mounted either, and both he and his
beast well spent as though with long travel."

"Who could it be?" St. Georges muttered. "Who?" Yet, think as he
might, no light broke in upon him. But, if this man was indeed the one
who had kidnapped his child, he felt sure of one thing: he was an
agent of De Roquemaure's. It was in the latter's light alone that he
and Dorine stood!

Again he questioned the hostler, but all that he could glean was that
the lurking traveller, the fellow who, after being refused the
hospitality of the inn, was yet prowling about the stables at
midnight, in search--if his story were true--of a worthless glove, was
undoubtedly a stranger in the city. Than that the hostler could tell
him no more.

"But," said the latter, "why not inquire at the _Cheval
Rouge_?--there, if anywhere, monsieur may glean tidings of him."

Clutching at the suggestion he went toward that inn, which was but in
the next street--a place that turned out to be a frowsy, dirty house,
frequented by the humblest travellers only. And here, after describing
the man he sought, he gathered the following facts, the stranger's
actions since he had put up at the _Cheval Rouge_ being indeed enough
to set the tongues of the landlord and landlady wagging directly they
were questioned about him:

For, strange circumstances in connection with a traveller who appeared
to be, as he stated he was, dead beaten with a long journey--whence
he had not said--he had not been in all night. His bed was still
unslept in, his hor