o the Count--in the last resort I 'll go to the
Count, for I mean to have the money." Reflections such as these (and
they were M. de Roustache's at this moment) would have shown even
Captain Dieppe--not, perhaps, that he had done the fisherman an
injustice, for the police may be very respectable--but at least that he
had mistaken his errand and his character.

But however much it might be abashed momentarily, the Captain's acumen
would not have been without a refuge. Who was the elderly man with
stooping shoulders and small keen eyes, who sat on the other side of
the fire, and had been engaged in persuading Paul that he too was a
fisherman, that he too loved beautiful scenery, that he too travelled
for pleasure, and, finally, that his true, rightful, and only name was
Monsieur Guillaume? To which Paul had responded in kind, save that he
had not volunteered his name. And now each was wondering what the
other wanted, and each was wishing very much that the other would seek
his bed, so that the inn might be sunk in quiet and a gentleman be at
liberty to go about his private business unobserved.

The landlord came in, bringing a couple of candles, and remarking that
it was hard on ten o'clock; but let not the gentlemen hurry themselves.
The guests sat a little while longer, exchanged a remark or two on the
prospects of the weather, and then, each despairing of outstaying the
other, went their respective ways to bed.

Almost at the same moment, up at the Castle, Dieppe was saying to his
host, "Good night, my friend, good night. I 'm not for bed yet. The
night is fine, and I 'll take a stroll in the garden." A keen observer
might have noticed that the Captain did not meet his friend's eye as he
spoke. There was a touch of guilt in his air, which the Count's
abstraction did not allow him to notice. Conscience was having a hard
battle of it; would the Captain keep on the proper side of the
barricade?

Monsieur Guillaume, owing to his profession or his temperament, was a
man who, if the paradox may be allowed, was not surprised at surprises.
Accordingly when he himself emerged from the bedroom to which he had
retired, took the path across the meadow from the inn towards the
river, and directed his course to the stepping-stones which he had
marked as he strolled about before dinner, he was merely interested and
in no way astonished to perceive his companion of the fireside in front
of him, the moon, nearly full, reve