"There will be two horses to-night at the cross-roads, a quarter of a mile away, if you think you can get so far, Monsieur Augustin, and if we have the luck not to be seen." "I can get there," said La Vireville. "Repose has benefited my foot. But we have a little matter that demands our attention in Porhoët first. You know that Mme. Rozel has been arrested?" "Yes, the poor woman!" "The poor woman, as you say. Well, before we leave this place I am minded to repay her hospitality. We must remember, too, that she was the defunct M. Alexis' agent here, and has deserved well of the King's cause. It will therefore be our business, before proceeding to Carhoët, to set her at liberty." "Monsieur is joking!" said the Chouan, his jaw dropped. And it took La Vireville, with all his authority, quite twenty minutes to extract from his horrified follower what he knew of the conditions of Mme. Rozel's captivity, and to reduce him, on the point of an attempt at rescue, to an incredibly sulky submission. "I am about to become a Republican to that end," announced the émigré when this result had at last been attained. "Do you fancy me in the rôle, Grain d'Orge?" And, limping to the cupboard, he snatched the tricolour sash off the peg, wound it twice round his waist and tied a flamboyant bow at the left side. Mingled horror and disgust strove in the Breton's face. "For God's sake, Monsieur Augustin!" he protested. "Citizen Augustin, if you please," corrected La Vireville with dignity. "I have, unfortunately, no cockade. Never mind; it is dark. But we want some little scrap of writing on official paper--just to make an effect. . . . I have it!" and he took from the breast of his coat the Government proclamation for his own head. "With a trifle of manipulation . . ." said he. "Grain d'Orge, descend into our parlour and bring me the pen and ink that is there." Unspeakably sullen, the Chouan obeyed, and when La Vireville had, by doubling up the paper, secured a blank space under the "In the name of the Republic one and indivisible," he executed thereon a few specious forgeries and waved the paper about to dry it. "Observe, my good Grain d'Orge," he said, "to what virtuous use can things evil be put. This paper, instead of being a brave man's death-warrant, shall bring liberty to a woman . . . who very little deserves it," he added to himself. "More, my faithful follower," he pursued impressively, "if you understood better what I was doing, you would be lost in admiration at the nobility of my character. I own that I am myself so lost." "I understand this, M. le Chevalier," retorted the Breton with passion, "that you are mad, stark mad, to go playing your head like this! The woman Rozel has bewitched you."