uth as Rocroy, or even
Charlemont. Name of a name, but it is more than likely!" he exclaimed,
with sudden conviction. "What do you say, Caron?"

"That you rave," answered La Boulaye coldly.

"Well, we shall see. I will despatch a message to my men, bidding
them spread themselves as far north as Comiines and as far south as
Charlemont. Should the fugitives have made such a detour as I suggested
there will be ample time to take them."

La Boulaye still contemned the notion with a fine show of indifference,
but Tardivet held to his purpose, and presently despatched the
messengers as he had proposed. At that Caron felt his pulses quickening
with anxiety for Mademoiselle. These astute measures must inevitably
result im her capture--for was it not at Roubaix that he had bidden her
await him? There was but one thing to be done, to ride out himself to
meet her along the road from Soignies to Oudenarde, and to escort
her into France. She should go ostensibly as his prisoner, and he was
confident that not all the brigands of Captain Tardivet would suffice to
take her from him.

Accordingly, he announced his intention of resuming his interrupted
journey, and ordered his men to saddle and make ready. Meanwhile, having
taken measures to recapture the Marquise should she have doubled back
into France, Charlot was now organising an expedition to scour the
road to Prussia, against the possibility of her having adhered to her
original intention of journeying that way. Thus he was determined to
take no risks, and leave her no loophole of escape.

Tardivet would have set himself at the head of the six horsemen of
this expedition, but that La Boulaye interfered, and this time to some
purpose. He assured the Captain that he was still far from recovered,
and that to spend a day in the saddle might have the gravest of
consequences for him.

"If the occasion demanded it," he concluded, "I should myself urge you
to chance the matter of your health. But the occasion does not. The
business is of the simplest, and your men can do as much without you as
they could with you."

Tardivet permitted himself to be persuaded, and Caron had again good
cause to congratulate himself that he had remained behind to influence
him. He opined that the men, failing to pick up the trail at Charleroi,
would probably go on as far as Dinant before abandoning the chase; then
they would return to Boisvert to announce their failure, and by that
time it would be