"Are you not," he said, gazing from the window, "are you not in a sadly-exposed situation here? Why, the Lord of Masseran, or any other of those small tyrants, could attack you at any time without the possibility of your escape." "You are mistaken," replied Corse de Leon, shortly: "before he came within two leagues of me, I should know his whole proceedings, and either scatter over the hill, and reach coverts which it were wiser to search for the deer or the chamois than for Corse de Leon, or else offer the good lord some hospitality on his coming which he might neither be willing to receive nor able to return. We have resources that you are not aware of, and neither he nor any one else knows more of them than to make him fear." "That you yourself have infinite resources in your activity and experience," replied Bernard de Rohan, "I can easily believe; but, depend upon it, if you were to trust the guidance of such hazardous matters to other men, they would soon be overthrown." "Not so, not so," replied his companion; "I know the contrary. Twice, for ends and objects of my own, I have traversed all France, leaving my men behind me; and, though perhaps not quite so busy as when I am here--ay, and somewhat cruel and disorderly when left to their own course--no evil has happened to themselves. I am now about to do the same, and I do it in all confidence." "Do you propose to go soon?" demanded Bernard de Rohan, in some surprise. "Ay," replied the brigand, "soon enough to meet you in Paris some day, perchance, or even to overtake you on the road; and, as we now talk about those things, let me caution you never to speak to me unless I speak to you: then take the tone that I take, whether it be one of strangeness or of former acquaintance. Recollect, too, that there is no such person as Corse de Leon beyond the frontiers of Savoy; but that, in many a part of France, the Chevalier Lenoir is known, and not badly esteemed." "I will be careful," replied the young lord. "But now, my good friend, tell me whither has my poor Isabel directed her steps." "First to Grenoble," replied Corse de Leon, "in the hope of finding her brother there; but, should she not meet with him, she goes thence at once to throw herself at the feet of the king." "But are you perfectly certain," demanded Bernard de Rohan, "that she has escaped from the pursuit of this base man who has married her mother?"