"Oh, poor house!" exclaimed Anne-Hilarion compassionately. "What has happened to it? Whose is it?" "Mine," replied La Vireville. His mouth was rather grim. "Is that Ker-where you lived?" La Vireville nodded. "The Blues burnt it down two years ago. It does not look very pretty now, does it? Yet it was beautiful once." "Oh, M. le Chevalier, you must have been very sorry!" "Sorry? Of course I was sorry, Anne. I was born there, and my father and grandfather before me. . . . Well, there are no more of us, so perhaps it does not much matter. We must go back now." The little boy stood with a very grave face under the larches, and looked at the irremediable havoc towards which they led. Then he thrust his hand silently into his friend's, and they both turned back into the wood. (3) "So, after all, Anne, your good-bye to France is a very peaceful one," observed La Vireville some hours later. He spoke the truth. The deck of the _Aristocrate_, one of the armed luggers employed in the Jersey correspondence, was under their feet, and the _Aristocrate_ herself, her sail ready to go up to the favouring wind, lay gently rolling on a tranquil sea. The little boat, manned by La Vireville's own gars, which had brought them out without adventure to the lugger, was just pulling away. La Vireville, standing by the side, looked after her. "Yes, this is really your farewell to France. God knows when you will see it again." "I think, perhaps," replied the Comte de Flavigny in his uncompromising treble, "that I would rather live in England. Though I like the Chouans. . . . But you will, no doubt, be going back to France, M. le Chevalier?" "I? Yes, in a couple of days, most probably," answered the émigré rather absently, gazing at the moon-silvered coast, dear and implacable, where one day, as he well knew, he should land for the last time. "And what the devil is this, M. de la Vireville?" demanded a voice behind him, and La Vireville turned to see Lieutenant Gosset, the Jerseyman who commanded the _Aristocrate_. "Have you kidnapped it, or is it, perchance, your own?" went on the sailor. "Neither," answered La Vireville. "Let me make known to you the Comte Anne-Hilarion de Flavigny. We have been making a little tour of Northern France together." And Anne made a bow, while Gosset laughed, half puzzled, and the lugger's mainsail went up. "May I stay on deck with you a little quarter of an hour?" begged Anne, snuggling down by La Vireville's side in the moonlight. "And tell me, please, M. le Chevalier, about Madame your mother, to whom we are going. Is she--is she old?" "That depends on what you consider old, my pigeon. She does not seem so to me. But perhaps I am old myself; I expect you think so, don't you? Her hair is grey, it is true--but so would mine be, Anne, if I had to look after you much longer."