His old pupil thanked him.  “All my brother’s friends and mine are most kind.  I should guess that you have yourself seen many sorrows, Mr. Pincornet.”

The Frenchman’s face twitched.  “Many, sir, many.  I have experienced the curse of fortune.  Eh bien! one pays, and all is said!  I have grieved with you, sir, I beg you to believe it.  I admired your brother.”

“He was worthy of admiration.”

“In the south, near Mauleon, I lost such an one—­brother not in blood but in friendship, a friendship pure as the flowers of spring and strong as the vintage of autumn.  His own troops turned Jacobin and scoundrel, mutinied, shot him down—­Ha!” Mr. Pincornet drew out his box and took snuff with trembling fingers.  “Well! the King’s side was uppermost for a while down there, and we had our revenge—­we had our revenge—­we had our revenge!  But,” he ended sadly, “it could not bring back my poor Charles.”

“Did you think of it as revenge?”

“No.  I thought of it as justice.  It was that, sir.  Those soldiers paid, but they owed the debt—­every sou they owed it!  He was,” continued Mr. Pincornet, “gallant and brave, a great lover, a great fighter.  He was to my heart, though not of my blood—­”

“The man that I have lost,” said Cary, “was of my blood and to my heart.  I am left alone of an old house.  And I pursue justice, Mr. Pincornet, I pursue justice, I pursue justice.”

Mr. Pincornet looked at the face opposite him.  “I think, sir, you will capture that to which you give chase.  I have been in town, away from the country, but I hear the talk, and sometimes I read the papers.  You have not taken the murderer?”

“No!”

“It is strange!” exclaimed the other.  “And no one suspected?”

“I suspect,” answered Cary sternly, “but the world in general does not, or suspects wrongly.  You were not at the inquest which was held?”

The dancing master shook his head.  “In your sorrow, sir, such matters were, naturally, not brought to your notice.  I fell ill, in the first days of September, at Red Fields, of a cold upon the lungs.  I gave up my art and lay at death’s door.  My head was light; I heard and I thought of nothing but the faces and the voices around about Aire where I was young.  I recovered, and, in the stage, I went to Richmond.  To ask who is it you suspect would be a question indiscreet—­”

Cary sat with his eyes upon the dark azure above the treetops.  “Not yet,” he said, in a brooding voice; “I have him not yet.  Did you, Mr. Pincornet, have any scruple when you took vengeance, near Mauleon?”

“None, sir!  I served justice.  Soldiers are not levied to murder at once their faith and their officers.  No more scruple than is yours in hunting down the wild beast that killed your brother!  You have my wishes there for a good hunting!”

The Ancien Regime put up his snuffbox and brushed the fallen grains from his old, old red brocade.  “What a night for music and for love!  The road down yonder—­it is like the silver ribbon they wear—­they wore—­at court!”