“Impossible: no, it can not be. Mirabeau a footpad! No, no. You _are_ mistaken, my good friend.” “Certainly—certainly.” “Let us not speak any more of this,” said Count du Saillant. “We will return to the drawing-room, and I hope you will be as gay as usual; if not, I shall set you down as a mad-man. I will so manage that our absence shall not be thought any thing of.” And the gentlemen re-entered the drawing room, one a short time before the other. The visitor succeeded in resuming his accustomed manner; but the count fell into a gloomy reverie, in spite of all his efforts. He could not banish from his mind the extraordinary story he had heard: it haunted him; and at last, worn out with the most painful conjectures, he again took his friend aside, questioned him afresh, and the result was, that a plan was agreed upon for solving the mystery. It was arranged that M. De —— should in the course of the evening mention casually, as it were, that he was engaged on a certain day to meet a party at a friend’s house to dinner, and that he purposed coming afterward to take a bed at the château, where he hoped to arrive at about nine in the evening. The announcement was accordingly made in the course of conversation, when all the guests were present—good care being taken that it should be heard by Mirabeau, who at the time was playing a game of chess with the curé. A week passed away, in the course of which a farmer was stopped and robbed of his purse; and at length the critical night arrived. Count du Saillant was upon the rack the whole evening; and his anxiety became almost unbearable when the hour for his friend’s promised arrival had passed without his having made his appearance. Neither had Mirabeau returned from his nocturnal promenade. Presently a storm of lightning, thunder, and heavy rain came on; in the midst of it the bell at the gate of the court-yard rang loudly. The count rushed out of the room into the court-yard, heedless of the contending elements; and before the groom could arrive to take his friend’s horse, the anxious host was at his side. His guest was in the act of dismounting. “Well,” said M. De ——, “I have been stopped. It is really he. I recognized him perfectly.”