"I do not know. All this was an affair of the heart, as to which I never received his full confidence, and which I could not afterwards unravel. I found out simply that he eloped with his wife, and that they made their way into France by way of the Urdoz road, disguised as poor people. The lady was near her time. They were travelling in a small vehicle of shabby aspect, a sort of peddler's cart, drawn by a single horse, purchased on the road, whose gait hardly kept time with their impatience. However, they reached without hindrance the last Spanish settlement, and, after passing the night in a wretched tavern, my brother was imprudent enough to try to exchange Spanish for French gold, and to ask a soi-disant nobleman who was in the house, attended by an old servant, and who offered to assist him, if he could procure French money for a thousand pistoles. "The individual in question was able to offer him only a trifling sum, and when my brother mounted his wagon again with his cloaked and veiled companion, the people at the inn noticed that the two strangers, as they bade him farewell, gazed earnestly at the two boxes which he himself loaded, one containing his money, the other his wife's jewels, and that they started off at once on his track, although they had previously announced their purpose to go in the opposite direction. The villains were described in such a way as to leave no manner of doubt as to their identity when a description of my brother's murderers was furnished." "Ah!" said D'Alvimar, "so you had a description of them?" "Exact. One had a handsome face and was so young that he seemed little more than a boy. He was of medium height but well proportioned. His hand was as white and slender as a woman's, he had an incipient beard, very black, silky hair, a noble bearing, a rich travelling costume, but little else, for his valise weighed nothing; a good Andalusian horse, and yonder infernal knife, which he used for eating and killing. The other----" "No matter, messire. Your brother----?" "I must describe the other miscreant, as he was described to me. He was a man in middle life, who had something of the monk and something of the hired bravo in his appearance. A long nose overhanging a gray moustache, a shifty eye, a callous hand, and of a taciturn humor; a genuine Spanish brute----" "I beg pardon, messire?" "A brute of the sort that we find in all countries where men are taught that they can save their souls from hell by reciting paternosters. The brigands followed my poor brother as two fierce, cowardly wolves follow the victim they dare not attack, and pounced upon him--What is it, messire? Are you too warm in this small room?" "Perhaps so, messire," replied D'Alvimar excitedly. "I feel difficulty in breathing the air of a house where the name of Spaniard seems to be held in such contempt as by yourself."