"It is M. de Lâge and his niece. You will not make me the instrument to harm them, monsieur. They are patriots, I will swear. Monsieur, monsieur ! "

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Silence, girl! What are you to question the methods of the Republic? It is a good recommendation at least that they commission a footpad to patrol the neighbourhood."

"It is none of their doing. Oh, monsieur, will you not believe me? He was an honest servant of theirs till this religion of Reason drove him to the crooked path. And he has been dismissed this twelvemonth."

"Harkee, wench! If I read you right, you are well quit of a scoundrel."

She fell to sobbing and clucking over that again; and in the midst of her outburst the half-revived felon was hustled into the shed.

The poor broken and collapsed creature fell at Crépin's feet and moaned for mercy.

"Give me a day of life," he snuffled abjectly, "and I will lead you to the treasure."

One of the guard pecked at his ribs with his boot. "Pomme de chou!" he grunted, "have you no other song to sing but that?"

But Crépin was looking extremely grave and virtuous.

"The prisoner is in no state to be examined," he said. "Place him under lock and key, with food and drink; and I will put him to the question later."

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CHAPTER IV.

THE CHÂTEAU DES PIERrettes.

'Nous y voici !"

The carriage pulled back with a jerk, so that the prisoner Michel, who sat opposite us, was almost thrown into our laps. One of our grimy escort appeared at the window.

"Dog of a thief!" he growled. "Is this the turning?"

The other sacréd below his breath and nodded sullenly. A vast chestnut (the thick of its butt must have been thirty feet in circumference) stood at the entrance to a narrow lane. Turning, with a worrying of wheels, down the latter, we continued our journey.

Southwards from Coutras we had broken into a plat of country very wild and sterile; but now we were amongst trees again-oak, chestnut, and walnut that thronged the damp hollows and flung themselves over the low hills in irresistible battalions.

Suddenly Michel bent forward and touched my

companion's knee menacingly. The rascal was near restored to himself, and his lowering eyes were full of gloom.

"The treasure, monsieur," he said; "is that the condition of my liberty?"

"I have said-discover it to me and thou shalt go free."

"But I, monsieur, I also must make a condition."

Crépin stared. The man bent still more earnestly forward.

"Mademoiselle Carinne-"

"The niece of De Lâge

???

"She must be considered-respected. I will not have her insulted with a look."

"What now, Michel?"

"Oh, monsieur! you may do as you will with the old, hard man; but her-her-"

"And is it for the lady's sake thou hast forborne hitherto to appropriate this treasure, the hidingplace of which thou wilt buy thy life by revealing?"

"It is so. I have driven a desperate trade, starving often with this knowledge in my breast."

"But why?"

"How can I tell? I have known her from a child. Once she struck me that I killed a cheeping wolf-cub she had brought from the snow; and then she was sorry and kissed the little stupid bruise; and I swore my arm should rot before it lost the will to protect her."

"I will do my best."

"But that is not enough. My God! if I were to sacrifice mademoiselle's dot without purpose."

"The purpose is thy life."

"That were nothing were she dishonoured." I put in a serene word—

"Yet it seems you would condemn her to poverty to save your skin?'

"That is different. I should have life; and life means many things-the power, possibly, to influence her fortunes; at least the wash of wine again in one's dusty throat."

"Michel," I said, "I must applaud you for a capital rogue."

He stared at me sombrely, muttered, "Je suis ce que je suis," and sank back in his corner.

We were running between dark hedges at the time. Suddenly we came among farm-buildings, a thronging dilapidated group. The byres mouldered on their props; the flat stones of the roofs had flaked generations of rubbish upon the weedy ground beneath.

Crépin rubbed his hands.

"It is well," he said. "This without doubt is a skinflint."

We turned a corner and passed the entrance to a ruined drive. Here the tall iron gates, swinging upon massive posts of rubble - stone, had been recently, it seemed, torn from their moorings of grass and knotted bindweed, for the ground was

scarred and the lower bars of metal hung with rags of drooping green. Crépin's features underwent another change at the sight.

"But what is this?" he muttered. "Something unaccustomed-some scare- -some panic?"

He looked with sudden fury at the prisoner. "If he has got wind of our coming-has escaped with

He broke off, showing his teeth and grinding his hands together. At the moment we came in view of the château.

It was an old grey house - built of the same material as the gate-pillars-with a high-pitched roof and little corner tourelles. Once, presumably, a possession of importance, decay and neglect had now beggared it beyond description. Yet within and without were evidences of that vulgar miserly spirit that seeks by inadequate tinkering to deceive with half-measures. The tangled grass of the lawn was cut only where its untidiness would have been most in evidence, and its litter left where it fell. Triton blew his conch from a fine fountain basin near the middle of the plot; but the shell, threatening to break away, had been fastened to the seagod's lips with a ligament of twine that was knotted round the head. A crippled bench was propped with a stone; a shattered ball - capital at the entrance-door held together with a loop of wire. What restoration that was visible was all in this vein of ludicrous economy.

But not a sign of life was about-no footstep

E