“Oh, I am all right,” responded the Vicomte easily. “It is you who are the more recent invalid now. Let us have a little more light on you.” He freed himself and went to the mantel-piece for a couple of candles, while the Marquis dropped back into his chair. “To think of your coming in upon us in this undramatic fashion,” remarked Saint-Ermay, a candlestick in either hand. “I should have liked to organise a triumphal reception for you, mon cher.” “M. des Graves tells me,” responded Château-Foix, again looking at him very keenly, “that you are a great hand at organisation—that you have got the whole village under your thumb.” Louis lit the candles. “It is very lamentable,” he said deliberately, “to what an extent holy men will give way to exaggeration. All this is because I said I’d be shot if I’d have the entire population trooping up here every morning to Mass. Come now, my dear Gilbert, let me hear all about your wanderings. You owe us a very detailed account to make up for all the anxiety you have given us.” He sat himself down on the arm of his cousin’s chair. “You must wait till M. des Graves comes back,” said the Marquis quietly. “I was just beginning to tell him when he was called away, about twenty minutes ago.” “What a nuisance,” observed Louis. “Well, tell me at least how you broke your leg. Were you climbing out of the window with a regiment of Blues after you? I had a vivid picture of your doing so.” “No, it was nothing so romantic. I got kicked by a horse.” “But that might have happened to you at home!” exclaimed the Vicomte in tones of profound disappointment. . . . “Father, he was _not_ escaping by the window!” For the door had opened, and M. des Graves was standing there looking at them. And a few minutes later, with the priest in his accustomed chair, and Louis, still booted and spurred, leaning against the hearth, the returned traveller began his promised recital. “The whole thing was the merest chance. After I had seen off my mother I happened to go into a certain eating-house in Nantes, and sat down at a table alone. Behind me were two men—not peasants—talking Breton, which, as you know, I do not understand. But in the midst of their conversation, to which I was paying no attention, came suddenly, several times repeated, the words ‘Monsieur Milet.’ And instantly I found myself devoured by curiosity to know what these men were saying about La Rouërie—supposing, indeed, that they were speaking of him. I waited a little, and then in a pause of their conversation I leant over to them and said: ‘Gentlemen, I do not understand Breton, so that I have not been eavesdropping on you, but I could not help overhearing a name which you mentioned. I once had an acquaintance of that name—a Monsieur Milet.’ “They looked at me in a curious manner, and one of them—he was quite a young man, and, now I saw him closer, a gentleman—said: ‘It is not an uncommon name, sir. Of what profession was this friend of yours?’