little
distance apart. Before obeying, Marche-a-Terre glanced at Francine whom
he seemed to pity; he wished to speak to her, and the girl was aware
that his silence was compulsory. The rough and sunburnt skin of his
forehead wrinkled, and his eyebrows were drawn violently together. Did
he think of disobeying a renewed order to kill Mademoiselle de Verneuil?
The contortion of his face made him all the more hideous to Madame du
Gua, but to Francine the flash of his eye seemed almost gentle, for it
taught her to feel intuitively that the violence of his savage nature
would yield to her will as a woman, and that she reigned, next to God,
in that rough heart.

The lovers were interrupted in their tender interview by Madame du
Gua, who ran up to Marie with a cry, and pulled her away as though some
danger threatened her. Her real object however, was to enable a member
of the royalist committee of Alencon, whom she saw approaching them, to
speak privately to the Gars.

"Beware of the girl you met at the hotel in Alencon; she will betray
you," said the Chevalier de Valois, in the young man's ear; and
immediately he and his little Breton horse disappeared among the bushes
from which he had issued.

The firing was heavy at that moment, but the combatants did not come to
close quarters.

"Adjutant," said Clef-des-Coeurs, "isn't it a sham attack, to capture
our travellers and get a ransom."

"The devil is in it, but I believe you are right," replied Gerard,
darting back towards the highroad.

Just then the Chouan fire slackened, for, in truth, the whole object
of the skirmish was to give the chevalier an opportunity to utter his
warning to the Gars. Merle, who saw the enemy disappearing across the
hedges, thought best not to follow them nor to enter upon a fight that
was uselessly dangerous. Gerard ordered the escort to take its former
position on the road, and the convoy was again in motion without the
loss of a single man. The captain offered his hand to Mademoiselle
de Verneuil to replace her in the coach, for the young nobleman stood
motionless, as if thunderstruck. Marie, amazed at his attitude, got into
the carriage alone without accepting the politeness of the Republican;
she turned her head towards her lover, saw him still motionless, and was
stupefied at the sudden change which had evidently come over him. The
young man slowly returned, his whole manner betraying deep disgust.

"Was I not right?" said Madame du Gua