Michu, supplied with food by his wife, who was amazed at his coolness, was eating with the avidity of a hungry man.  He made no answer to the justice, for his mouth was full and his heart innocent.  Gothard’s appetite was destroyed by fear.

“Look here,” said the forester, going up to Michu and whispering in his ear:  “What have you done with the senator?  You had better make a clean breast of it, for if we are to believe these people it is a matter of life or death to you.”

“Good God!” cried Marthe, who overheard the last words and fell into a chair as if annihilated.

“Violette must have played us some infamous trick,” cried Michu, recollecting what Laurence had said in the forest.

“Ha! so you do know that Violette saw you?” said the justice of peace.

Michu bit his lips and resolved to say no more.  Gothard imitated him.  Seeing the uselessness of all attempts to make them talk, and knowing what the neighborhood chose to call Michu’s perversity, the justice ordered the gendarmes to bind his hands and those of Gothard, and take them both to the chateau, whither he now went himself to rejoin the director of the jury.

CHAPTER XIV

THE ARRESTS

The four young men and Laurence were so hungry and the dinner so acceptable that they would not delay it by changing their dress.  They entered the salon, she in her riding-habit, they in their white leather breeches, high-top boots and green-cloth jackets, where they found Monsieur d’Hauteserre and his wife, not a little uneasy at their long absence.  The goodman had noticed their goings and comings, and, above all, their evident distrust of him, for Laurence had been unable to get rid of him as she had of her servants.  Once when his own sons evidently avoided making any reply to his questions, he went to his wife and said, “I am afraid that Laurence may still get us into trouble!”

“What sort of game did you hunt to-day?” said Madame d’Hauteserre to Laurence.

“Ah!” replied the young girl, laughing, “you’ll hear some day what a strange hunt your sons have joined in to-day.”

Though said in jest the words made the old lady tremble.  Catherine entered to announce dinner.  Laurence took Monsieur d’Hauteserre’s arm, smiling for a moment at the necessity she thus forced upon her cousins to offer an arm to Madame d’Hauteserre, who, according to agreement, was now to be the arbiter of their fate.

The Marquis de Simeuse took in Madame d’Hauteserre.  The situation was so momentous that after the Benedicite was said Laurence and the young men trembled from the violent palpitation of their hearts.  Madame d’Hauteserre, who carved, was struck by the anxiety on the faces of the Simeuse brothers and the great alteration that was noticeable in Laurence’s lamb-like features.

“Something extraordinary is going on, I am sure of it!” she exclaimed, looking at all of them.