But the priest, whose character had been so plainly revealed by this quarrel with his domestic, was not a man to their taste.

At least, he was evidently not the man they had hoped to find—­not the auxiliary whose assistance was indispensable to the success of their plans.

Yet they did not exchange a word; they listened.

They heard the sound as of a discussion in the passage.  The master spoke in low tones, but with an unmistakable accent of command; the servant uttered an astonished exclamation.

But the listeners could not distinguish a word.

Soon the priest re-entered the apartment.

“I hope, gentlemen,” he said, with a dignity that could not fail to check any attempt at raillery, “that you will excuse this ridiculous scene.  The cure of Sairmeuse, thank God! is not so poor as she says.”

Neither the duke nor Martial made any response.

Even their remarkable assurance was very sensibly diminished; and M. de
Sairmeuse deemed it advisable to change the subject.

This he did, by relating the events which he had just witnessed in Paris, and by insisting that His Majesty, Louis XVIII., had been welcomed with enthusiasm and transports of affection.

Fortunately, the old housekeeper interrupted this recital.

She entered, loaded with china, silver, and bottles, and behind her came a large man in a white apron, bearing three or four covered dishes in his hands.

It was the order to go and obtain this repast from the village inn which had drawn from Bibiaine so many exclamations of wonder and dismay in the passage.

A moment later the cure and his guests took their places at the table.

Had the much-lamented chicken constituted the dinner the rations would have been “short.”  This the worthy woman was obliged to confess, on seeing the terrible appetite evinced by M. de Sairmeuse and his son.

“One would have sworn that they had eaten nothing for a fortnight,” she told her friends, the next day.

Abbe Midon was not hungry, though it was two o’clock, and he had eaten nothing since the previous evening.

The sudden arrival of the former masters of Sairmeuse filled his heart with gloomy forebodings.  Their coming, he believed, presaged the greatest misfortunes.

So while he played with his knife and fork, pretending to eat, he was really occupied in watching his guests, and in studying them with all the penetration of a priest, which, by the way, is generally far superior to that of a physician or of a magistrate.

The Duc de Sairmeuse was fifty-seven, but looked considerably younger.

The storms of his youth, the dissipation of his riper years, the great excesses of every kind in which he had indulged, had not impaired his iron constitution in the least.

Of herculean build, he was extremely proud of his strength, and of his hands, which were well-formed, but large, firmly knit and powerful, such hands as rightly belonged to a gentleman whose ancestors had given many a crushing blow with ponderous battle-axe in the crusades.