Edward Langdale rode on from place to place, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, as the condition of the roads and the nature of the country required; and, strangely enough for a journey in those days, neither accident nor adventure befell him. One thing excited his curiosity and suspicion, however. At Trapes, where he passed the first night after leaving the house of Madame de Chevreuse, when he had finished his supper and was just retiring to rest, he caught for a moment, on the somewhat darksome stairs, one glance of a face he thought he had seen before. He could not identify it, indeed, for it was lost as soon as seen; but it instantly carried his mind back to his adventure with the two Savoyards, and he felt almost sure that face belonged to one of them. But neither of the two strangers appeared the next morning; and Pierrot and Jacques both assured him that their horses were not in the stable. There are faces that haunt us both in night and daydreams; and Edward was almost led to believe that one of these spectres of the imagination had taken possession of him; for twice or three times before he reached Gray that face again crossed him for a moment, and always when no one else was present who could confirm or remove his suspicions. Those were not pleasant days to live in; and it is a very difficult thing for any one born in and accustomed to the bad comfortable modern days to realize those _good old times_. Espionage was then a great science, an honorable profession, practised by great dignitaries and men of high degree. Words brought men's heads to the block, and thoughts often conducted to a prison. There was no need of overt acts: intentions were quite sufficient; and friends and foes were so continually changing places that no one could tell that the thoughts uttered in the confidence of familiar intercourse would not be brought forward a few days or weeks later to lead one to the dungeon and the rack. Yet it is wonderful, unaccountable, how freely and daringly men spoke their mind,--how the grave condemnation, the witty lampoon, or the hideous libel, was disseminated without ceremony. Men laughed and had their heads chopped off,--and would have laughed still if they could have been fixed on again, I do believe; for nothing seemed a warning or a restraint. Edward, however, born in a country where neither the reign of the Tudor nor of the Stuart had been able to crush out the spirit of liberty, loved not to be watched; and there is always something more alarming in the indefinite than the definite danger. He could not divine what was the object of the two strangers, if, indeed, they had any object, in thus persisting in following him. The cardinal had lacked no opportunity of detaining him at Nantes, or of arresting him on his journey, if he had thought fit; and yet he could not clear his mind from suspicion till he reached Franche Comté and found himself beyond the power of the French minister.