ch she hoped to get upon the track of
Toussac. A woman's wit, spurred by the danger of her lover, might
perhaps succeed where Fouche and Savary had failed. When at last I
turned my horse I found my young hussar still staring after the distant
rider.

'My faith! There is the woman for you, Etienne!' he kept repeating.
'What an eye! What a smile! What a rider! And she is not afraid of
the Emperor. Oh, Etienne, here is the woman who is worthy of you!'

These were the little sentences which he kept muttering to himself until
she vanished over the hill, when he became conscious at last of my
presence.

'You are mademoiselle's cousin?' he asked. 'You are joined with me in
doing something for her. I do not yet know what it is, but I am
perfectly ready to do it.'

'It is to capture Toussac.'

'Excellent!'

'In order to save the life of her lover.'

There was a struggle in the face of the young hussar, but his more
generous nature won.

'Sapristi! I will do even that if it will make her the happier!' he
cried, and he shook the hand which I extended towards him. 'The Hussars
of Bercheny are quartered over yonder, where you see the lines of
picketed horses. If you will send for Lieutenant Etienne Gerard you
will find a sure blade always at your disposal. Let me hear from you
then, and the sooner the better!' He shook his bridle and was off, with
youth and gallantry in every line of him, from his red toupet and
flowing dolman to the spur which twinkled on his heel.

But for four long days no word came from my cousin as to her quest, nor
did I hear from this grim uncle of mine at the Castle of Grosbois.
For myself I had gone into the town of Boulogne and had hired such a
room as my thin purse could afford over the shop of a baker named Vidal,
next to the Church of St. Augustin, in the Rue des Vents. Only last
year I went back there under that strange impulse which leads the old to
tread once more with dragging feet the same spots which have sounded to
the crisp tread of their youth. The room is still there, the very
pictures and the plaster head of Jean Bart which used to stand upon the
side table. As I stood with my back to the narrow window, I had around
me every smallest detail upon which my young eyes had looked; nor was I
conscious that my own heart and feelings had undergone much change. And
yet there, in the little round glass which faced me, was the long drawn,
weary face of an aged man, and out