footloose wanderer in a strange land, a bird of passage without ties or
responsibilities.

He thought it devilish hard that one may never do a service to another
without incurring a burden of irksome obligations to the served; that
bonds of interest forged in moments of unpremeditated and generous
impulse are never readily to be broken.

Now because Chance had seen fit to put him in the way of saving a
hapless party of sightseers from robbery or worse, he found himself
hopelessly committed to take a continuing interest in them. It appeared
that their home was a château somewhere in the vicinity of Nant. Well,
after their shocking experience, and with the wounded man on their
hands--and especially if La Roque-Sainte-Marguerite told the story one
confidently expected--Duchemin could hardly avoid offering to see them
safely as far as Nant. And once there he would be definitely in the
toils. He would have to stop in the town overnight; and in the morning
he would be able neither in common decency to slip away without calling
to enquire after the welfare of d'Aubrac and the tranquillity of the
ladies, nor in discretion to take himself out of the way of the civil
investigation which would inevitably follow the report of what had
happened in Montpelier.

No: having despatched a bandit to an end well-earned, it now devolved
upon André Duchemin to satisfy Society and the State that he had done
so only with the most amiable motives, on due provocation, to save his
own life and possibly the lives of others.

He had premonitions of endless delays while provincial authorities
wondered, doubted, criticised, procrastinated, investigated, reported,