But Gilles shook his head, and his companion grunted an echo of
his disapproval.

"That will not serve, master," he answered sullenly. "What if the
Seigneur should have word of his presence here? It is over-dangerous.
Someone may see him. No, no, Either he leaves Bellecour this very
night, and you swear that he shall, or else we carry him back to the
Chateau."

"But how can I swear this?" cried Duhamel impatiently.

"Why, easily enough," put in the stranger. " Let me take him in my
berline. I can leave him at Amiens or at Beauvais, or any one of
the convenient places that I pass. Or I can even carry him on to
Paris with me."

"You are very good, Maximilien," answered the old man, to which the
other returned a gesture of deprecation.

In this fashion, then, was the matter settled to the satisfaction
of the Seigneur's retainers, and upon having received Duhamel's
solemn promise that Caron should be carried out of Bellecour, and,
for that matter, out of Picardy, before the night was spent, they
withdrew.

Within the schoolmaster's study he whom Duhamel called Maximilien
strode to and fro, his hands clasped behind his back, his head bent,
his chin thrust forward, denouncing the seigneurial system, of whose
atrocity he had received that evening instances enough - for he had