“Here is the other letter,” she said, with the color in her cheeks.

  Andernach.  Before the battle.

My kind Laurence,—­My heart is sad; but Marie-Paul has a gayer nature, and will please you more than I am able to do.  Some day you will have to choose between us—­well, though I love you passionately—­

“You are corresponding with emigres,” said Peyrade, interrupting Laurence, and holding the letters between himself and the light to see if they contained between the lines any treasonable writing with invisible ink.

“Yes,” replied Laurence, folding the precious letters, the paper of which was already yellow with time.  “But by virtue of what right do you presume to violate my dwelling and my personal liberty?”

“Ah, that’s the point!” cried Peyrade.  “By what right, indeed!—­it is time to let you know it, beautiful aristocrat,” he added, taking a warrant from his pocket, which came from the minister of justice and was countersigned by the minister of the interior.  “See, the authorities have their eye upon you.”

“We might also ask you,” said Corentin, in her ear, “by what right you harbor in this house the assassins of the First Consul.  You have applied your whip to my hands in a manner that authorizes me to take my revenge upon your cousins, whom I came here to save.”

At the mere movement of her lips and the glance which Laurence cast upon Corentin, the abbe guessed what that great artist was saying, and he made her a sign to be distrustful, which no one intercepted but Goulard.  Peyrade struck the cover of the box to see if there were a double top.

“Don’t break it!” she exclaimed, taking the cover from him.

She took a pin, pushed the head of one of the carved figures, and the two halves of the top, joined by a spring, opened.  In the hollow half lay miniatures of the Messieurs de Simeuse, in the uniform of the army of Conde, two portraits on ivory done in Germany.  Corentin, who felt himself in presence of an adversary worthy of his efforts, called Peyrade aside into a corner of the room and conferred with him.

“How could you throw that into the fire?” said the abbe, speaking to Laurence and pointing to the letter of the marquise which enclosed the locks of hair.

For all answer the young girl shrugged her shoulders significantly.  The abbe comprehended then that she had made the sacrifice to mislead the agents and gain time; he raised his eyes to heaven with a gesture of admiration.

“Where did they arrest Gothard, whom I hear crying?” she asked him, loud enough to be overheard.

“I don’t know,” said the abbe.

“Did he reach the farm?”

“The farm!” whispered Peyrade to Corentin.  “Let us send there.”

“No,” said Corentin; “that girl never trusted her cousins’ safety to a farmer.  She is playing with us.  Do as I tell you, so that we mayn’t have to leave here without detecting something, after committing the great blunder of coming here at all.”