a military
salute.

"I must ask your hospitality for us and for these two fellows whom we
have taken up to-night, prowling about the neighbourhood," he said.

The dismayed Louise broke in.

"Good heavens, sergeant, are you bringing thieves here? Where do you
expect me to put them? Surely there's enough trouble in the house as it
is!"

The gendarme, Morand, smiled with the disillusioned air of a man who
knows very well what trouble is, and the sergeant replied:

"Put them? Why, in your kitchen, of course," and as the servant made a
sign of refusal, he added: "I am sorry, but you must; besides, there's
nothing for you to be afraid of; the men are handcuffed, and we shall
not leave them. We are going to wait here for the magistrate who will
examine them."

The gendarmes had pushed their wretched captives in before them, two
tramps of the shadiest appearance.

Louise, who had gone mechanically to raise the lid of a kettle beginning
to boil over, looked round at his last words.

"The magistrate?" she said: "M. de Presles? Why, he is here now--in the
library."

"No?" exclaimed the sergeant, jumping up from the kitchen chair on which
he had seated himself.

"He is, I tell you," the old woman insisted; "and the little man who
generally goes about with him is here too."

"You mean M. Gigou, his clerk?"

"Very likely," muttered Louise.

"I leave the prisoners with you, Morand," said the sergeant curtly;
"don't let them out of your sight. I am going to the magistrate. I have
no doubt he will wish to interrogate these fellows at once."

The gendarme came to attention and saluted.

"Trust me, sergeant!"

It looked as if Morand's job was going to be an easy one; the two
tramps, huddled up in a corner of the kitchen opposite the stove, showed
no disposition to make their escape. The two were utterly different in
appearance. One was a tall, strongly built man, with thick hair crowned
by a little jockey cap, and was enveloped in a kind of overcoat which
might have been black once but which was now of a greenish hue, the
result of the inclemency of the weather; he gnawed his heavy moustache
in silence and turned sombre, uneasy looks on all, including his
companion in misfortune. He wore hobnailed shoes and carried a stout
cudgel. He was more like a piece of the human wreckage one sees in the
street corners of great cities than a genuine tramp. Instead of a
collar, there was a variegated handkerchief round his neck.