The old corporal gave a knowing wink. “Ah! you distrust me!” said he. “You are wrong, as I’ll show you. It may be easy to gull that fool who has just left here, but it’s not so easy to deceive Corporal Bavois. And if you had intended to do so, you shouldn’t have left a gun in the courtyard, which was certainly never loaded for firing at swallows.” The cure and Maurice exchanged glances of consternation. Maurice now recollected, for the first time, that on alighting from the cabriolet on his return, he had hastily propped the loaded gun against the wall. The weapon had subsequently escaped the servants’ notice. “Secondly!” resumed Bavois, “there is some one concealed in the attic. I have excellent ears. Thirdly, I arranged matters so that no one should enter the sick lady’s room.” Maurice needed no further proof. He held out his hand to the corporal, and, in a voice trembling with emotion, replied: “You are a noble fellow!” A few moments later--the three grenadiers having retired to another room, where they were served with supper--Maurice, the abbe, and Madame d’Escorval were again deliberating concerning their future action, when Marie-Anne entered the apartment with a pale face, but firm step. “I must leave this house,” she said, to the baroness, in a tone of quiet resolution. “Had I been conscious, I would never have accepted hospitality which is likely to bring such misfortune on your family. Your acquaintance with me has cost you too much sorrow already. Don’t you understand now, why I wished you to look on us as strangers? A presentiment told me that my family would prove fatal to yours!” “Poor child!” exclaimed Madame d’Escorval; “where will you go?” Marie-Anne raised her beautiful eyes to heaven. “I don’t know, madame,” she replied, “but duty commands me to go. I must learn what has become of my father and brother, and share their fate.” “What!” exclaimed Maurice, “still this thought of death. You, who no longer----” He paused; for a secret which was not his own had almost escaped his lips. But visited by a sudden inspiration, he threw himself at his mother’s feet. “Oh, my mother! my dearest mother, do not allow her to go,” he cried. “I may perish in my attempt to save my father. She will be your daughter then--she whom I have loved so dearly. She cannot leave us. You will encircle her with your tender and protecting love; and may be, after all these trials, happier times will come.” Touched by her son’s despair, Madame d’Escorval turned to Marie-Anne, and with her winning words soon prevailed upon her to remain. XVI.