“I don’t know.”

“I distrust that little scamp.  Go up in the garret, look in the hay-loft, look everywhere for him.”

Marthe left the room to obey the order.  When she returned she found Michu on his knees, praying.

“What is the matter?” she said, frightened.

The bailiff took his wife round the waist and drew her to him, saying in a voice of deep feeling:  “If we never see each other again remember, my poor wife, that I loved you well.  Follow minutely the instructions which you will find in a letter buried at the foot of the larch in that copse.  It is enclosed in a tin tube.  Do not touch it until after my death.  And remember, Marthe, whatever happens to me, that in spite of man’s injustice, my arm has been the instrument of the justice of God.”

Marthe, who turned pale by degrees, became white as her own linen; she looked at her husband with fixed eyes widened by fear; she tried to speak, but her throat was dry.  Michu disappeared like a shadow, having tied Couraut to the foot of his bed where the dog, after the manner of all dogs, howled in despair.

Michu’s anger against Monsieur Marion had serious grounds, but it was now concentrated on another man, far more criminal in his eyes,—­on Malin, whose secrets were known to the bailiff, he being in a better position than others to understand the conduct of the State Councillor.  Michu’s father-in-law had had, politically speaking, the confidence of the former representative to the Convention, through Grevin.

Perhaps it would be well here to relate the circumstances which brought the Simeuse and the Cinq-Cygne families into connection with Malin,—­circumstances which weighed heavily on the fate of Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne’s twin cousins, but still more heavily on that of Marthe and Michu.

The Cinq-Cygne mansion at Troyes stands opposite to that of Simeuse.  When the populace, incited by minds that were as shrewd as they were cautious, pillaged the hotel Simeuse, discovered the marquis and marchioness, who were accused of corresponding with the nation’s enemies, and delivered them to the national guards who took them to prison, the crowd shouted, “Now for the Cinq-Cygnes!” To their minds the Cinq-Cygnes were as guilty as other aristocrats.  The brave and worthy Monsieur de Simeuse in the endeavor to save his two sons, then eighteen years of age, whose courage was likely to compromise them, had confided them, a few hours before the storm broke, to their aunt, the Comtesse de Cinq-Cygne.  Two servants attached to the Simeuse family accompanied the young men to her house.  The old marquis, who was anxious that his name should not die out, requested that what was happening might be concealed from his sons, even in the event of dire disaster.  Laurence, the only daughter of the Comtesse de Cinq-Cygne, was then twelve years of age; her cousins both loved her and she loved them equally.  Like other twins the