“God be praised!” exclaimed Maurice, “Marie-Anne’s father has escaped!  He had a good horse, and in two hours——­”

A glance and a nudge of the elbow from the abbe checked him.

The abbe drew his attention to the man standing near them.  This man was none other than Chupin.

The old scoundrel had also recognized them, for he took off his hat to the cure, and with an expression of intense covetousness in his eyes, he said:  “Twenty thousand francs! what a sum!  A man could live comfortably all his life on the interest of it.”

The abbe and Maurice shuddered as they re-entered their carriage.

“Lacheneur is lost if this man discovers his retreat,” murmured the priest.

“Fortunately, he must have crossed the frontier before this,” replied Maurice.  “A hundred to one he is beyond reach.”

“And if you should be mistaken.  What, if wounded and faint from loss of blood, Lacheneur has had only strength to drag himself to the nearest house and ask the hospitality of its inmates?”

“Oh! even in that case he is safe; I know our peasants.  There is not one who is capable of selling the life of a proscribed man.”

The noble enthusiasm of youth drew a sad smile from the priest.

“You forget the dangers to be incurred by those who shelter him.  Many a man who would not soil his hands with the price of blood might deliver up a fugitive from fear.”

They were passing through the principal street, and they were struck with the mournful aspect of the place—­the little city which was ordinarily so bustling and gay—­fear and consternation evidently reigned there.  The shops were closed; the shutters of the houses had not been opened.  A lugubrious silence pervaded the town.  One might have supposed that there was general mourning, and that each family had lost one of its members.

The manner of the few persons seen upon the thoroughfare was anxious and singular.  They hurried on, casting suspicious glances on every side.

Two or three who were acquaintances of the Baron d’Escorval averted their heads, on seeing his carriage, to avoid the necessity of bowing.

The abbe and Maurice found an explanation of this evident terror on reaching the hotel to which they had ordered the coachman to take them.

They had designated the Hotel de France, where the baron always stopped when he visited Montaignac, and whose proprietor was none other than Laugeron, that friend of Lacheneur, who had been the first to warn him of the arrival of the Duc de Sairmeuse.

This worthy man, on hearing what guests had arrived, went to the court-yard to meet them, with his white cap in his hand.

On such a day politeness was heroism.  Was he connected with the conspiracy?  It has always been supposed so.

He invited Maurice and the abbe to take some refreshments in a way that made them understand he was anxious to speak with them, and he conducted them to a retired room where he knew they would be secure from observation.