And he did both. But Louis, deprived of the safety-valve of talking nonsense, lay miserably wide-awake in the darkness. Yet the high spirits which he had displayed had not been wholly feigned; they were not altogether summoned up at will to hide his heart from Gilbert’s eyes. He was young enough to feel a measure of elation at having done right at great cost, and there had been something too of reaction in his vivacity. But now that there was no longer need to be gay it was very different. Swept back, despite his struggles, into the room at the Hôtel de la Séguinière, every phase of that intolerable parting tortured him afresh. How she had clung to him—how she had besought him! . . . it was as though he should always hear that anguished, pleading voice. . . . He groaned, and flung himself over in the truckle-bed. He must not, dared not, think of it. . . . Denied those images his thoughts went off to others, guessed at; to her on her road. What must she not be suffering now, alone, hourly drawing further away! But he must not think of that either! . . . What was it that she had been going to tell him, and had not?—and, tormenting question, what had she written in the note which Gilbert had so belatedly received? . . . What use to surmise; he had no right to know! . . . So, desperately, he tried to cling to the idea of Gilbert’s goodness to him; that he had come to Paris to warn him, that he had saved him from almost certain death. And, tossed on this ocean of pain, he fell asleep at last, to dream of his lost love, but not with happy dreams. * * * * * * The Marquis had resolved to continue posting, and they traversed thus the next morning the twenty-five miles or so to Verneuil. But Gilbert soon began to regret his decision. The country seemed strongly patriot; every village through which they passed had its tree of liberty crowned with the red cap, and at Tillières some of the inhabitants ran after the chaise, shouting out abuse of them as aristocrats. By the time the old fortifications of Verneuil came in sight Château-Foix had determined to abandon the post chaise for the humble diligence. “Of course, as a good Republican, I applaud you,” was Louis’ observation as they entered the town. “This country is certainly too patriotic for comfortable methods of travelling. Even the saints are _sans-culottes_—look at that.” And he pointed to a statue of Saint Anne which adorned a porch of the Church of the Madeleine. A cap of liberty perched on her stone coif. “Yes; and I have noticed two or three wayside Calvaries with a tricolour ribbon tied round the arm of the Christ,” said Gilbert. “These are unmistakable signs, and I think we shall do well to observe them.”