'Silence!' said she, becoming angry again, and with her riding switch giving me a smart tap over the bridle hand--so smart indeed that had not my thick military glove protected me, I must have dropped both curb and snaffle reins. 'Silence, and say no more of this.' 'Of what?--you quite puzzle me!' 'Thank Heaven, yonder are the spires of Chalons!' 'You early warned me to beware of the Countess, dear Nicola.' 'Well.' 'One night at a gate of the Louvre when I was a sentinel, opposite the Hotel de Bourbon.' 'Do you remember what I said?' 'Could I forget anything in which Nicola bore a part? Well--I took your advice--I saw her no more.' 'Many thanks for such condescending acquiescence; but M. Blane will please to remember that he marched from Paris, as I foretold, next day. How far are we from Chalons?' 'About six miles.' 'Thank Heaven!' 'Why this thankfulness again?' 'Because this hateful--odious journey will soon be at an end.' 'Hateful?' said I, anxiously. 'Yes--exceedingly so!' 'You are weary of me, dearest Nicola,' said I, attempting to take her whip hand. 'Weary of your conversation, at least,' said she, giving a second switch over the fingers; 'and unless you can find a more entertaining subject than the beauty, wit, et cetera, of the French king's avowed mistress, please to speak no more.' I began to fear that I had gone too far; but whence all this pique? Did this charming enigma--this beautiful girl--really love me, and feel her little heart swell at the thought of rivalry? I could neither answer this question, nor account for the strange timidity with which her manner infected me. 'Pardon me, mademoiselle,' said I, urging Dagobert close to her side, and venturing to kiss her hand--and this time the switch was not raised--'I will not say more until you address me.' 'Then, you shall be silent long enough, I promise you.' She was evidently in a furious pet; thus we rode in silence into Chalons, and were then one hundred and three miles from Paris. I stole a glance from time to time at Nicola, and to my great perplexity perceived that she was in tears; but amid the bustle of Chalons, the examination of our papers by the suspicious guard at the gate, and my anxiety to find, in a strange city, a suitable hotel, I could not refer to our past and peculiar conversation, or to the delightful inferences I drew from it. Chalons lies between two spacious meadows on the river Marne, which divides it into three parts--the town, the isle, and suburb; and high over all its mansions towered the spire of St. Stephen. The streets were wide and bordered by trees; the ramparts were strong; the ditches deep and broad. Sir Andrew Gray, of Broxmouth in Lothian, a veteran Scottish soldier of fortune, was governor, and his garrison consisted of two fine battalions of the regiment de Normandie. CHAPTER XXXVI. OUR JOURNEY TOGETHER.