leagues from Evreux to Louviers; they got out before entering the town as the Marquise wished to avoid the Hotel du Mouton where she was known.  They went by side streets to the bridge of the Eure where they hired a carriage which took them by nightfall to the hamlet of Val-Tesson.  They were now only a league from Tournebut which they could reach by going through the woods.  But would they not find gendarmes there?  Mme. de Combray’s flight might have aroused suspicion at Falaise, Caen and Bayeux, and brought police supervision to her house.  It was nine in the evening when, after an hour’s walk, she reached the Hermitage.  She thought it prudent to send Lefebre on ahead, and accompanied him to the gate where she left him to venture in alone.  All appeared tranquil in the chateau, the lawyer went into the kitchen where he found a scullery maid who called Soyer, the confidential man, and Mme. de Combray only felt safe when she saw the latter himself come to open a door into the garden; she then slipped, without being seen, into her own room.

CHAPTER VI

THE YELLOW HORSE

The man in the “black overcoat” who had conducted the gendarmes on their visit to Donnay, was no other than “Grand-Charles,” one of Allain’s followers.  He had been arrested at Le Chalange on July 14th, and had consented without hesitation, to show the spot in the Buquets’ garden where the money had been hidden.  He recognised the position of the house and garden, the room in which Allain and his companions had been received on the night of the robbery, and even the glass which Mme. Buquet had filled for him.  At the bottom of the garden traces of the excavation that had contained the money were found; the loft contained linen, and other effects of Mme. Acquet; her miniature was hanging on the wall of Joseph’s room.  Joseph alone had fled; his father, mother, and brother were taken to prison in Caen the same evening.

“Grand-Charles,” who did not want to be the only one compromised, showed the greatest zeal in searching for his accomplices.  As Querelle had done before, he led Manginot and his thirty gendarmes over all the country, until they reached the village of Mancelliere, which passed as the most famous resort of malcontents in a circuit of twenty leagues.  As in the happiest days of the Chouan revolt, there were bloody combats between the gendarmes and the deserters.  After one of these engagements Pierre-Francois Harel,—­who had passed most of his time since the Quesnay robbery in a barrel sunk in the earth at the bottom of a garden—­was arrested in the house of a M. Lebougre, where he had gone to get some brandy and salt to dress a wound.  But Manginot made a more important capture in Flierle, who was living peacefully at Amaye-sur-Orne, with one of his old captains, Rouault des Vaux.  Flierle told his story as soon as he was interrogated; he knew that “high personages” were in the plot, and thought they would think twice before pushing things to an issue.