While Martial seemed wholly occupied with thoughts of his approaching marriage, he was really tortured with anxiety as to the fate which had overtaken the Baron d’Escorval and the other fugitives. The three members of the D’Escorval family, the abbe, Marie-Anne, Corporal Bavois, and four half-pay officers, had all disappeared, leaving no trace behind them. This was very remarkable, as the search prescribed by MM. de Sairmeuse and Courtornieu had been conducted with feverish activity, greatly to the terror of its promoters. Still what could they do? They had imprudently excited the zeal of their subordinates, and now they were unable to allay it. Fortunately, however, all the efforts to discover the fugitives proved unsuccessful; and the only information that could be obtained came from a peasant, who declared that on the morning of the escape, just before day-break, he had met a party of a dozen persons, men and women, who seemed to be carrying a dead body. This circumstance, taken in connection with the broken rope and the stains of blood at the bottom of the cliff, made Martial tremble. He was also strongly impressed by another circumstance, which came to light when the soldiers on guard the night of the escape were questioned as to what transpired. “I was on guard in the corridor communicating with the prisoner’s quarters in the tower,” said one of these soldiers, “when at about half-past two o’clock, just after Lacheneur had been placed in his cell, I saw an officer approaching me. I challenged him; he gave me the countersign, and, naturally, I let him pass. He went down the passage, and entered the empty room next to M. d’Escorval’s. He remained there about five minutes.” “Did you recognize this officer?” asked Martial eagerly. “No,” answered the soldier. “He wore a large cloak, the collar of which was turned up so high that it hid his face to the very eyes.” “Who could this mysterious officer have been?” thought Martial, racking his brains. “What was he doing in the room where I left the ropes?” The Marquis de Courtornieu, present at the examination, seemed much disturbed. Turning to the witness he asked him angrily, “How could you be ignorant that there were so many sympathizers with this movement among the garrison? You might have known that this visitor, who concealed his face so carefully, was an accomplice warned by Bavois, who had come to see if he needed a helping hand.” This seemed a plausible explanation, but it did not satisfy Martial. “It is very strange,” he thought, “that M. d’Escorval has not even deigned to let me know he is in safety. The service I rendered him deserves that acknowledgment, at least.”