“No.  I saw one man hurrying past us.  But nobody heard of the arrest except Eagle.”

“How did she get out?”

“Out of what?”

“The queen’s closet.”

“She was in the garden.  She said she went down the private stairway to avoid the gendarme.  She must have done it cleverly, for she came in on the arm of Junot and the matter was not noticed.  There stood my emergency facing me again.  You had deserted.  What made you imagine you were threatened with arrest?”

“Because a gendarme in court dress laid his hand on my shoulder and told me I was to come with him.”

“Well, you may have drawn the secret police upon you.  You had been cutting a pretty figure.  It was probably wise to drop between walls and get out of France.  Do you know why you were arrested?”

“I think the groundless charge would have been an attack upon Napoleon.”

“You never attacked the emperor!”

“No.  But I had every reason to believe such a charge would be sworn against me if I ever came to trial.”

“Perhaps that silly dauphin story leaked out in Paris.  The emperor does hate a Bourbon.  But I thought you had tricked me.  And the old marquis never took his eyes off the main issue.  He gave Eagle his arm, and was ready to go in and thank the emperor.”

“You had to tell him?”

“I had to tell him.”

“What did he say?”

“Not a word.  All the blood seemed to be drawn out of his veins, and his face fell in.  Then it burned red hot, and instead of good friend and benefactor, I saw myself a convict.  His big staring blue eyes came out of a film like an owl’s, and shot me through.  I believe he saw everything I ever did in my life, and my intentions about Eagle most plainly of all.  He bowed and wished me good-night, and took her out of the Tuileries.”

“But you saw him again?”

“He never let me see him again, or her either.  I am certain he forbade her to communicate with us.  They did not go back to Mont-Louis.  They left their hotel in Paris.  I wrote imploring him to hold the estates.  My messages were returned.  I don’t know how he got money enough to emigrate.  But emigrate they did; avoiding Castorland, where the Saint-Michels, who brought her up, lived in comfort, and might have comforted her, and where I could have made her life easy.  He probably dragged her through depths of poverty, before they joined a company bound for the Indiana Territory, where the Pigeon Roost settlement was planted.  I have seen old Saint-Michel work at clearing, and can imagine the Marquis de Ferrier sweating weakly while he chopped trees.  It is a satisfaction to know they had Ernestine with them.  De Ferrier might have plowed with Eagle,” said the count hotly.  “He never hesitated to make use of her.”

While I had been living a monk’s studious, well-provided life, was she toiling in the fields?  I groaned aloud.