“That is what I am just going to tell you,” returned Cointet, and he gave his companion an account of his recent bold stroke. “M. Milaud is just about to be appointed attorney for the crown at Nevers, my dear fellow,” he continued; “sell your practice, and in ten years’ time you will be Keeper of the Seals. You are not the kind of a man to draw back from any service required of you by the Court.” “Very well,” said Petit-Claud, his zeal stirred by the prospect of such a career, “very well, be in the Place du Mûrier to-morrow at half-past four; I will see old Séchard in the meantime; we will have a deed of partnership drawn up, and the father and the son shall be bound thereby, and delivered to the third person of the trinity--Cointet, to wit.” To return to Lucien in Paris. On the morrow of the loss announced in his letter, he obtained a _visa_ for his passport, bought a stout holly stick, and went to the Rue d’Enfer to take a place in the little market van, which took him as far as Longjumeau for half a franc. He was going home to Angoulême. At the end of the first day’s tramp he slept in a cowshed, two leagues from Arpajon. He had come no farther than Orléans before he was very weary, and almost ready to break down, but there he found a boatman willing to bring him as far as Tours for three francs, and food during the journey cost him but forty sous. Five days of walking brought him from Tours to Poitiers, and left him with but five francs in his pockets, but he summoned up all his remaining strength for the journey before him. He was overtaken by night in the open country, and had made up his mind to sleep out of doors, when a traveling carriage passed by, slowly climbing the hillside, and, all unknown to the postilion, the occupants, and the servant, he managed to slip in among the luggage, crouching in between two trunks lest he should be shaken off by the jolting of the carriage--and so he slept. He awoke with the sun shining into his eyes, and the sound of voices in his ears. The carriage had come to a standstill. Looking about him, he knew that he was at Mansle, the little town where he had waited for Mme. de Bargeton eighteen months before, when his heart was full of hope and love and joy. A group of post-boys eyed him curiously and suspiciously, covered with dust as he was, wedged in among the luggage. Lucien jumped down, but before he could speak two travelers stepped out of the calèche, and the words died away on his lips; for there stood the new Prefect of the Charente, Sixte du Châtelet, and his wife, Louise de Nègrepelisse. “Chance gave us a traveling-companion, if we had but known!” said the Countess. “Come in with us, monsieur.”