He almost s.n.a.t.c.hed the letter from his cousin's hand.

"Yes, yes, read it. Oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" Herve groaned, and stamped his feet.

The letter was written in very shaky characters, and Angelot had to hold it under one of the candle sconces on the wall.

"My dear Comte:--

"You will receive to-morrow, I have reason to think, an Imperial recommendation--which means a command--to give Mademoiselle your daughter in marriage to General Ratoneau. If you see any way out of this dilemma, I need hardly advise you to take it. You would have been warned earlier of the danger, but circ.u.mstances have been too strong for me. My part in the affair I hope to explain. In the meanwhile believe in my sincere friendship, and burn this letter.

"_De Mauves_."

Angelot drew in his breath sharply. "Ah! The Prefect is good," he said.

While he read the letter, his cousin was staring at him. Slowly, intently, yet with a sort of vague distraction, his eyes travelled over Angelot; the plain shooting clothes, so odd a contrast in that gay house, at that time of night, to his own elegant evening dress; the handsome, clear-cut, eager face, the young lips set with a man's firmness and energy.

"I thought you were in prison," said Herve.

"I escaped from the police."

"Why did they arrest you?"

"I do not know. I believe it was a private scheme of that rascal Simon's--such things have happened."

"Tell me all--and quickly."

Angelot began to obey him, but after a few words broke off suddenly.

"Uncle Herve, what is the use of talking about me? What are you going to do? Let us think--yes, I have a plan. If you were to call my cousin Helene quietly out of the ball-room to change her dress, I would have horses ready in the north wood, and I would ride with you at least part of the way to Le Mans. There you could get a post-chaise and drive to Paris. Place her safely in a convent, and go yourself to the Emperor--"

"And do you suppose, Angelot, that I have enough influence with the Emperor to make him withdraw an order already given--and do you not know that this is a favourite amus.e.m.e.nt of his, this disgusting plan of giving our daughters to any butcher and son of a butcher who has slaughtered enough men to please him? Your uncle Joseph told us all about it. He said it was in the Prefect's hands--I can hardly believe that our Prefect would have treated me so. There is some intrigue behind all this. I suspect--ah, I will teach them to play their tricks on me! A convent--my poor boy, do you expect they would leave her there?

Even a hundred years ago they would have dragged her out for a political marriage--how much more now!"

For a moment there was dead silence; they looked hard at each other, but if Angelot read anything in his cousin's eyes, it was something too extraordinary to be believed. He flushed again suddenly as he said, "You can never consent to such a marriage, for you gave me your word of honour that you would not."

"Will they ask my consent? I have refused it once already," said Herve de Sainfoy.

He walked a few steps, and turned back; he was much calmer now, and his face was full of grave thought and resolution.

"Angelot," he said, "you are your father's son, as well as your uncle's nephew. Tell me, have you actually done anything to bring you under imperial justice?"

"Nothing," Angelot answered. "The police may pretend to think so. Uncle Joseph says I am in danger. But I have done nothing."

"Did you say you were leaving the country to-morrow? Alone?"

"With some of Uncle Joseph's friends."

"Ah! And your father?"

"I shall come back some day. Life is too difficult," said Angelot.

"You want an anchor," Herve said, thoughtfully. "Now--will you do everything I tell you?"

"In honour."

"Tiens! Honour! Was it honour that brought you into my house to-night?"

"No--but not dishonour."

"Well, there is no time for arguing. I suppose you are not bound in honour to this wild-goose chase of your uncle's--or his friends'?"

"I don't know," Angelot said; and indeed he did not, but he knew that Cesar d'Ombre looked upon him as an addition to his troubles, and had only accepted his company to please Monsieur Joseph.

And now the same power that had dragged Angelot out of his way to Lancilly was holding him fast, heart and brain, and was saying to him, "You cannot go"; the strongest power in the world. He was trembling from head to foot with a wilder, stranger madness than any he had ever known; the great decisive hour of his life was upon him, and he felt it, hard as it was to realise or understand anything in those dark, confused moments.

What wonderful words had Herve de Sainfoy said? by what way had he brought him, and set him clear of the chateau? he hardly knew. He found himself out in the dark on the south, the village side; he had to skirt round the backs of the houses and then slip up the river bank till he came to the bridge between the long rows of whispering, rustling poplars. After that a short cut across the fields, where he knew every bush and every rabbit hole, brought him up under the shadow of the church at La Mariniere.

The Cure lived with his old housekeeper in a low white house above the church, on the way to the manor. She was always asleep early; but the old man, being very studious and too nervous to sleep much, often sat up reading till long after midnight. Angelot therefore counted on finding a light in his window, and was not disappointed. He cut his old friend's eager welcome very short.

"Monsieur le Cure, come with me at once to the chateau, if you please.

Monsieur de Sainfoy wishes to see you."

"At this hour of the night! What can he want with me? I understood the whole world was dancing."

"So it is--but he wants you, he wants you. Quick, where is your hat?"

"How wild you look, Angelot! Is any one dying?"

"No, no!"

"Why does he not send for his own priest?"

"Because he wants a discreet man. He wants you."

The Cure began to hurry about the room.

"By the bye, take your vestments," said Angelot in a lower tone. "He wants you to say ma.s.s in the chapel. Take everything you ought to have.

I will carry it all for you."

"The chapel is not in a fit state--and who will serve at the ma.s.s?"

"I will--or he will find somebody. Oh, trust me, Monsieur le Cure, and come, or I shall have to carry you."

"But _you_, Ange--I thought--"

"Don't think! All your thoughts are wrong."

"My dear boy, have you seen your father?"