“Let us go!” cried Rouget.

“Put the horse in quietly,” said Max to Kouski; “manage, if you can, that the town shall not know of this nonsense, for Monsieur Rouget’s sake.  Saddle my horse,” he added in a whisper.  “I will ride on ahead of you.”

Monsieur Hochon had already notified Philippe of Flore’s departure; and the colonel rose from Monsieur Mignonnet’s dinner-table to rush to the place Saint-Jean; for he at once guessed the meaning of this clever strategy.  When Philippe presented himself at his uncle’s house, Kouski answered through a window that Monsieur Rouget was unable to see any one.

“Fario,” said Philippe to the Spaniard, who was stationed in the Grande-Narette, “go and tell Benjamin to mount his horse; it is all-important that I shall know what Gilet does with my uncle.”

“They are now putting the horse into the caleche,” said Fario, who had been watching the Rouget stable.

“If they go towards Vatan,” answered Philippe, “get me another horse, and come yourself with Benjamin to Monsieur Mignonnet’s.”

“What do you mean to do?” asked Monsieur Hochon, who had come out of his own house when he saw Philippe and Fario standing together.

“The genius of a general, my dear Monsieur Hochon,” said Philippe, “consists not only in carefully observing the enemy’s movements, but also in guessing his intentions from those movements, and in modifying his own plan whenever the enemy interferes with it by some unexpected action.  Now, if my uncle and Max drive out together, they are going to Vatan; Maxence will have promised to reconcile him with Flore, who ’fugit ad salices,’—­the manoeuvre is General Virgil’s.  If that’s the line they take, I don’t yet know what I shall do; I shall have some hours to think it over, for my uncle can’t sign a power of attorney at ten o’clock at night; the notaries will all be in bed.  If, as I rather fancy, Max goes on in advance of my uncle to teach Flore her lesson, —­which seems necessary and probable,—­the rogue is lost! you will see the sort of revenge we old soldiers take in a game of this kind.  Now, as I need a helper for this last stroke, I must go back to Mignonnet’s and make an arrangement with my friend Carpentier.”

Shaking hands with Monsieur Hochon, Philippe went off down the Petite-Narette to Mignonnet’s house.  Ten minutes later, Monsieur Hochon saw Max ride off at a quick trot; and the old miser’s curiosity was so powerfully excited that he remained standing at his window, eagerly expecting to hear the wheels of the old demi-fortune, which was not long in coming.  Jean-Jacques’s impatience made him follow Max within twenty minutes.  Kouski, no doubt under orders from his master, walked the horse through the town.

“If they get to Paris, all is lost,” thought Monsieur Hochon.