“If necessary, I will go myself,” said the countess, “and see my cousin, de Casteran, the prefect.  But until then, I tremble for that child—­”

The words were said at the end of the path close to the open space by the bridge.  As they reached the edge of the bank the countess gave a cry; Michaud advanced to help her, thinking she had struck her foot against a stone; but he shuddered at the sight that met his eyes.

Marie Tonsard and Bonnebault, seated below the bank, seemed to be conversing, but were no doubt hiding there to hear what passed.  Evidently they had left the wood as the party advanced towards them.

Bonnebault, a tall, wiry fellow, had lately returned to Conches after six years’ service in the cavalry, with a permanent discharge due to his evil conduct,—­his example being likely to ruin better men.  He wore moustachios and a small chin-tuft; a peculiarity which, joined to his military carriage, made him the reigning fancy of all the girls in the valley.  His hair, in common with that of other soldiers, was cut very short behind, but he frizzed it on the top of his head, brushing up the ends with a dandy air; on it his foraging cap was jauntily tilted to one side.  Compared to the peasants, who were mostly in rags, like Mouche and Fourchon, he seemed gorgeous in his linen trousers, boots, and short waistcoat.  These articles, bought at the time of his liberation, were, it is true, somewhat the worse for a life in the fields; but this village cock-of-the-walk had others in reserve for balls and holidays.  He lived, it must be said, on the gifts of his female friends, which, liberal as they were, hardly sufficed for the libations, the dissipations, and the squanderings of all kinds which resulted from his intimacy with the Cafe de la Paix.

Cowardice is like courage; of both there are various kinds.  Bonnebault would have fought like a brave soldier, but he was weak in presence of his vices and his desires.  Lazy as a lizard, that is to say, active only when it suited him, without the slightest decency, arrogant and base, able for much but neglectful of all, the sole pleasure of this “breaker of hearts and plates,” to use a barrack term, was to do evil or inflict damage.  Such a nature does as much harm in rural communities as it does in a regiment.  Bonnebault, like Tonsard and like Fourchon, desired to live well and do nothing; and he had his plans laid.  Making the most of his gallant appearance with increasing success, and of his talents for billiards with alternate loss and gain, he flattered himself that the day would come when he could marry Mademoiselle Aglae Socquard, only daughter of the proprietor of the Cafe de la Paix, a resort which was to Soulanges what, relatively speaking, Ranelagh is to the Bois de Boulogne.  To get into the business of tavern-keeping, to manage the public balls, what a fine career for the marshal’s baton of a ne’er-do-well!  These morals, this life, this nature, were so plainly stamped upon the face of the low-lived profligate that the countess was betrayed into an exclamation when she beheld the pair, for they gave her the sensation of beholding snakes.