"Incredible!" the Vicomte exclaimed, stalking across the hearth and returning in excitement. "Since Coutras I have heard no such thing! A Countess of Rochechouart attacked on the road and put to it like a common herdgirl. It must be the work of those cursed--peasants! It must be so! But, then, the men who brought her to the door and vanished again, who are they? Travellers are not so common in these parts. You might journey three days before you fell in with a body of men-at-arms to protect you on your way." "True," des Ageaux answered. "But I learned no more from them." "And you, Master Booby?" the Vicomte said, addressing Roger with his usual sarcasm. "You asked nothing, I suppose?" "I was busied about the Countess," the lad muttered. "It was dark, and I heard no more than their voices." "Then it was only you who saw them?" the Vicomte exclaimed, turning again to des Ageaux. "Did you not notice what manner of men they were, sir, how many, and of what class? Strange that they should leave a warm house-door at this hour! Did you form no opinion of them? Were they"--he brought out the word with an effort--"Crocans, think you?" The Lieutenant replied that he took them for the armed attendants of a gentleman passing that way, and the Vicomte, though ill-content with the answer, was obliged to put up with it. "Yet it seems passing strange to me," he retorted, "that you did not think their drawing off a little beside the ordinary. And who travels at this hour of the night, I would like to know?" The Lieutenant made no answer, and the Vicomte too fell silent. From time to time serving-women had passed through the room--for, after the awkward fashion of those days, the passage to the inner apartments was through the dining-hall--some with lights, and some with fire in pans. The draught from the closing doors had more than once threatened to extinguish the flickering candles. Such flittings produced an air of bustle and a hum of preparation long unknown in that house; but they were certainly more to the taste of the menials than the master. At each interruption the Vicomte pished and pshawed, glaring as if he would slay the offender. But the women, emboldened by the event and the presence of strangers, did not heed him, and after some minutes of silent sufferance his patience came to an end. "Go you," he cried to Roger, "and bid the girl come to me." "The Countess, sir?" the lad exclaimed in astonishment. The Vicomte swore. "No, fool!" he replied. "Your sister! Is she master of the house, or am I? Bid her descend this instant and tell me what is forward and what she has learned." Roger, with secret reluctance, obeyed, and his father, sorely fretting, awaited his return. Two minutes elapsed, and three. Seldom stirring abroad, the Vicomte had, in spite of all his talk about Coutras, an overweening sense of his own importance, and he was about to break out in fury when Bonne at length entered. She was followed by Roger.