The moon was high, but not bright enough to read a small and delicate handwriting by. The Captain found himself in a tantalising position.

He gave Paul some more brandy, laid down the packet of letters, and turned to the portfolio. It was large and official in appearance, and it had an ingenious clasp which baffled Dieppe. With a sigh he cut the leather top and bottom, and examined the prize.

"Ah, my dear Banque de France, even in this light I can recognise your charming, allegorical figures," he said with a smile. There were thirty notes--he counted them twice, for they were moist and very sticky. There was another paper. "This must be--" He rose to his feet and held the paper up towards the moon. "I can't read the writing," he murmured, "but I can see the figures--30,000. Ah, and that is 'Genoa'! Now to whom is it payable, I wonder!"

"What the devil are you doing?" growled Paul, sitting up with a shiver.

"My friend, I have saved your life," observed the Captain, impressively.

"That's no reason for robbing me," was Paul's ungrateful but logically sound reply.

The Captain stooped and picked up the bundle of letters. Separating them one from another, he tore them into small fragments and scattered them over the stream. Paul watched him, sullen but without resistance.

Dieppe turned to him.

"You have no possible claim against the Countess," he remarked; "no possible hold on her, Monsieur de Roustache."

Paul finished the flask for himself this time, shivered again, and swore pitifully. He was half-crying and cowed. "Curse the whole business!" he said. "But she had twenty thousand francs of my money."

The Captain addressed to him a question somewhat odd under the circ.u.mstances.

"On your honour as a gentleman, is that true?" he asked.

"Yes, it's true," said Paul, with a glare of suspicion. He was not in the mood to appreciate satire or banter; but the Captain appeared quite grave and his manner was courteous.

"It's beastly cold," Paul continued with a groan.

"In a moment you shall take a run," the Captain promised. And he pursued, "The Countess must not be in your debt. Permit me to discharge the obligation." He counted twenty of the thirty notes and held them out to Paul. After another stare Paul laughed feebly.

"I am doing our friend M. Guillaume no wrong," the Captain explained.

"His employers have in their possession fifty thousand francs of mine.

I avail myself of this opportunity to reduce the balance to their debit. As between M. Guillaume and me, that is all. As between you and me, sir, I act for the Countess. I pay your claim at your own figures, and since I discharge the claim I have made free to destroy the evidence. I have thrown the letters into the river. I do not wish to threaten, but if you 're not out of sight in ten minutes, I 'll throw you after them."

"If I told you all the story--" began Paul with a sneer.

"I 'm not accustomed to listen to stories against ladies, sir,"

thundered the Captain.

"She 's had my money for a year--"

"The Countess would wish to be most liberal, but she did not understand that you regarded the transaction as a commercial one." He counted five more notes and handed them to Paul with an air of careless liberality.

Paul broke into a grudging laugh.

"What are you going to tell old Guillaume?" he asked.

"I'm going to tell him that my claim against his employers is reduced by the amount that I have had the honour to hand you, M. de Roustache.

Pardon me, but you seem to forget the remark I permitted myself to make just now." And the Captain pointed to the river.

Paul rose and stamped his feet on the ground; he looked at his companion, and his surprise burst out in the question, "You really mean to let me go with five and twenty thousand francs!"

"I act as I am sure the lady whose name has been unavoidably mentioned would wish to act."

Paul stared again, then sn.i.g.g.e.red again, and pocketed his spoil.

"Only you must understand that--that the mine is worked out, my friend.

I think your way lies there." He pointed towards the road that led up from the ford to Sasellano.

Still Paul lingered, seeming to wish to say something that he found difficult to phrase.

"I was devilish hard up," he muttered at last.

"That is always a temptation," said the Captain, gravely.

"A fellow does things that--that look queer. I say, would n't that odd five thousand come in handy for yourself?"

The Captain looked at him; almost he refused the unexpected offer scornfully; but something in Paul's manner made him cry, quite suddenly, almost unconsciously, "Why, my dear fellow, if you put it that way--yes! As a loan from you to me, eh?"

"A loan? No--I--I--"

"Be at ease. Loan is the term we use between gentlemen--eh?" The Captain tried to curl his moist, uncurlable moustache.

And Paul de Roustache handed him back five thousand francs.

"My dear fellow!" murmured the Captain, as he stowed the notes in safety. He held out his hand; Paul de Roustache shook it and turned away. Dieppe stood watching him as he went, making not direct for the Sasellano road, but shaping a course straight up the hill, walking as though he hardly knew where he was going. So he pa.s.sed out of the Captain's sight--and out of the list of the Countess of Fieramondi's creditors.

A little smile dwelt for a moment on Dieppe's face.

"I myself am very nearly a rascal sometimes," said he.

Crack! crack! The sound of a whip rang clear; the clatter of hoofs and the grind of a wheel on the skid followed. A carriage dashed down the hill from Sasellano. Paul de Roustache had seen it, and stooped low for a moment in instinctive fear of being seen. Captain Dieppe, on the other hand, cried "Bravo!" and began to walk briskly towards the ford.

"How very lucky!" he reflected. "I will beg a pa.s.sage; I have no fancy for another bath to-night."

CHAPTER VIII

THE CARRIAGE AT THE FORD

The direct issue between her Excellency and the innkeeper at Sasellano had ended as all such differences (save, of course, on points of morality) should--in a compromise. The lady would not resign herself to staying at Sasellano; the landlord would not engage to risk pa.s.senger, carriage, and horses in the flood. But he found and she accepted the services of a robust, stout-built fellow who engaged with the lady to drive her as far as the river and across it if possible, and promised the landlord to bring her and the equipage back in case the crossing were too dangerous. Neither party was pleased, but both consented, hoping to retrieve a temporary concession by ultimate victory. Moreover the lady paid the whole fare beforehand--not, the landlord precisely stipulated, to be returned in any event. So off her Excellency rattled in the wind and rain; and great was her triumph when the rain ceased, the wind fell, and the night cleared. She put her head out of the rackety old landau, whose dilapidated hood had formed a shelter by no means water-tight, and cried, "Who was right, driver?"

But the driver turned his black cigar between his teeth, answering, "The mischief is done already. Well, we shall see!"

They covered eight miles in good time. They pa.s.sed Paul de Roustache, who had no thought but to avoid them, and, once they were pa.s.sed, took to the road and made off straight for Sasellano; they reached the descent and trotted gaily down it; they came within ten yards of the ford, and drew up sharply. The lady put her head out; the driver dismounted and took a look at the river.

Shaking his head, he came to the window.

"Your Excellency can't cross to-night," said he.

"I will," cried the lady, no less resolute now than she had been at the inn.