The Count de Meyrand and his horsemen wound slowly away from the door of the little cabaret, leaving Isabel de Brienne and her maid the only tenants of the place. Both were extremely tired; and the lady herself would have desired to lie down to rest at once rather than wait for the preparation of any kind of food, but that she was also anxious to converse over her situation with her attendant, and to see if, between them, they could not devise some plan of future conduct which might obviate the difficulties which surrounded her. She, therefore, did not even propose to take rest, and began the conversation at once; but, taciturn as the woman always was, she was at present more so than ever. There was not only a sort of sullenness in her manner, which somewhat displeased Isabel, but she spoke rather in the tone of one who had been injured than in compassion for the greater sufferings of her mistress. In answer to all inquiries regarding what had been done in the chapel after her lady had lost the power of observing what was passing, she replied merely that she had been as frightened as anybody, and thought of nobody but herself. "You seem to be grieved, Marguerite," said Isabel de Brienne, after this sort of conduct had proceeded some time, "you seem to be grieved, Marguerite, that you have aided me in this business, and so brought some inconveniences upon yourself." "No, mademoiselle," she said, shortly, "but I am very tired." "Then I think you had better go to bed," replied Isabel; "I shall not want you for some hours." "I will, presently, mademoiselle," replied the maid; "but I am very hungry." Isabel had not the heart to smile, as she might have done on another occasion; for selfishness is, perhaps, less offensive when it stands out in its plain simplicity than when it is discovered through a hypocritical disguise. In fact, like ugliness, it is more ugly when painted. Almost as the soubrette spoke, however, the good woman of the house, who was a widow, brought in with her own hands and the hands of a maid-servant--which were exactly like another pair of her own, for they enacted nothing without her orders--several dishes for the morning meal, which were placed with all due reverence before Isabel de Brienne. The young lady tried to eat; but, as she did so, the thought of many painful things, of the probable situation of him she loved best, and of the dark fate that might be hanging over him, came across her mind; and, to use the homely but expressive words of old John Hall, when describing the conduct of the first famous Duke of Buckingham between his arrest and his execution, "The meat would not down."