"My very modest lackey, you greatly undervalue both your life and your liberty, if you think you can buy them from me at so small a cost. No; you offer too little. The pleasure of killing you far exceeds that of having your guidance. Now that we have happily met you, we know that there must be shelter, food, and drink somewhere near at hand. We can find them for ourselves in as short a time, perhaps, as it would require you to take us there. We shall doubtless have the happiness of meeting there your very gallant master and the lady whom he protects with your arm and sword. Having robbed him of his means of guarding his lovely charge, I shall in fairness relieve him of the charge." I perceived here the opportunity of learning whether it was under the governor's orders, received through Montignac, that De Berquin pursued mademoiselle while he came in quest of the Sieur de la Tournoire, or whether it was on his own account. "Your infatuation for this lady must be very great," I said, in a tone too low for his four followers to distinguish my words, "to lead you to force your presence on her." "_My_ infatuation!" he repeated, and then he laughed. "My very knowing lackey, if you were better informed of my affairs, you would know that an infatuation for Mlle. de Varion is a luxury that I cannot at present afford. A man who has lost his estates, his money, his king's favor, and who has fled from his creditors in Paris to prey on the provinces, thinks not of love, but of how to refill his pockets." "Then it is not for love that you pursue Mlle. de Varion?" I said. I now believed, as I had first thought, that the governor had changed his mind after ordering mademoiselle to leave the province, had decided to hold her in durance, and had commissioned De Berquin to detain her, as well as to hunt down me. But I put the question in order to get further time for thought. "For love, yes; but not for mine!" was the answer. This startled me. "For that of M. de la Chatre?" I asked, quickly. "You seem to be curious on this point," said De Berquin, derisively. "If I am to die," I replied, "you can lose nothing by gratifying my curiosity. If I am to live, I may be the better able to serve you if you gratify it." "I am not one to refuse the request of a man about to die," he said, with a self-amused look. "It is not La Chatre, the superb, whose _amour_ I have come into this cursed wilderness to serve." "Then who--?" But I stopped at the beginning of the question, as a new thought came to me. "The secretary!" I said. "Montignac, the modest and meditative," replied De Berquin.