hat I could think of one thing only
that could have power to effect so marvellous a transformation. I felt
his presence a trial rather than a help, and reviewing the course of our
short friendship, which a day or two before had been so great a delight
to me--as the friendship of a young man commonly is to one growing
old--I puzzled myself with much wondering whether there could be rivalry
between us.

Sunset, which was welcome to my company, since it removed the haze,
which they regarded with superstitious dread, found us still plodding
through a country of low ridges and shallow valleys, both clothed in
oak-woods. Its short brightness died away, and with it my last hope of
surprising Bruhl before I slept. Darkness fell upon us as we wended
our way slowly down a steep hillside where the path was so narrow and
difficult as to permit only one to descend at a time. A stream of some
size, if we might judge from the noise it made, poured through the
ravine below us, and presently, at the point where we believed the
crossing to be, we espied a solitary light shining in the blackness.
To proceed farther was impossible, for the ground grew more and more
precipitous; and, seeing this, I bade Maignan dismount, and leaving us
where we were, go for a guide to the house from which the light issued.

He obeyed, and plunging into the night, which in that pit; between the
hills was of an inky darkness, presently returned with a peasant and a
lanthorn. I was about to bid the man guide us to the ford, or to some
level ground where we could picket the horses, when Maignan gleefully
cried out that he had news. I asked what news.

'Speak up, MANANT!' he said, holding up his lanthorn so that the light
fell on the man's haggard face and unkempt hair. 'Tell his Excellency
what you have told me, or I will skin you alive, little man!'

'Your other party came to the ford an hour before sunset,' the peasant
answered, staring dully at us. 'I saw them coming, and hid myself. They
quarrelled by the ford. Some were for crossing, and some not.'

'They had ladies with them?' M. d'Agen said suddenly.

'Ay, two, your Excellency,' the clown answered, 'riding like men. In the
end they did not cross for fear of the plague, but turned up the river,
and rode westwards towards St. Gaultier.'

'St. Gaultier!' I said, 'Where is that? Where does the road to it go to
besides?'

But the peasant's knowledge was confined to his own neighbourhood. He
knew no w