ld is doing, and at nightfall retrace your steps and
hasten back to Sezanne."

"Where shall I meet you?"

"Let me think," answered Marteau. "I shall first go east and then
west, if I can get around that division ahead yonder. Let us take the
road to d'Aumenier. I will meet you at the old chateau at ten o'clock,
or not later than midnight. There is a by-road over the marsh and
through the forest by the bank of the river to Sezanne."

"I know it."

"Very well, then. It is understood?"

Old Bullet-Stopper nodded.

"The road is clear," he said. "Good luck."

The two men rose to their feet, shook hands.

"We had better go separately," said Marteau. "You have the longer
distance. You first. I will follow."

The officer watched the old grenadier anxiously. He passed the road
safely, ran across the intervening space, and disappeared in a little
clump of fruit trees surrounding a deserted farmhouse. The young man
waited, listening intently for the sound of a shot or struggle, but he
heard nothing. Then he turned, stepped out into the road, saw it was
empty for the moment, set his face eastward, and moved across it to see
what he could find out beyond.

CHAPTER V

WHEN THE COSSACKS PASSED

For the first time in years the great hall of the Chateau d'Aumenier
was brightly lighted. The ancient house stood in the midst of a wooded
park adjacent to the village, overlooking one of the little lakes whose
outlets flowed into the Morin. In former days it had been the scene of
much hospitality, and, even after the revolution in the period of the
consulate and the early empire, representatives of the ancient house
had resided there, albeit quietly and in greatly diminished style. The
old Marquis Henri, as uncompromising a royalist soldier as ever lived,
had fled to England and had remained there. His younger brother,
Robert, compromising his dignity and his principles alike, had finally
made his submission to Napoleon and received back the estates, or what
had not been sequestrated. But he had lived there quietly, had sought
no preferment of the government--even rejecting many offers--and had
confined his recognition to as narrow limits as possible. He had
married and there had been born to him a daughter, whom he had named
after the ancient dames of his honorable house, Laure.

The Count d'Aumenier, living thus retired, had fallen into rather
careless habits after the death of his wife, and the litt