With that stained bandage round his head, dulled and bloodshot eyes, face blackened with powder and smoke and features drawn and haggard, Bobby Clyffurde was indeed almost unrecognisable. But Maurice knew him on the instant. Hitherto, he had not thought of how he had come out of that terrible hell-fire behind La Haye Sainte--indeed, he had quickly lost consciousness and never regained it till now: and now he knew that the same man who in the narrow hotel room near Lyons had ungrudgingly rendered him a signal service--had risked his life to-day for his--Maurice's sake. No one could have entered that awful mêlée and faced the bayonet charge of Pelet's cuirassiers and the hail of bullets from their tirailleurs without taking imminent risk of death. Yet Clyffurde had done it. Why? Maurice--wide-eyed and sullen--could only find one answer to that insistent question. That same deadly pang of jealousy which had assailed his heart after the midnight interview at the inn now held him in its cruel grip again. He felt that he hated the man to whom he owed his life, and that he hated himself for this mean and base ingratitude. He would not trust himself to speak or to look on Bobby at all, lest the ugly thoughts which were floating through his mind set their stamp upon his face. "Will you ride on to Brussels?" he said at last. "I can wait here . . . and perhaps you could send a conveyance for me later on. M. le Comte de Cambray would . . ." "M. le Comte de Cambray and Mademoiselle Crystal are even now devoured with anxiety about you," broke in Clyffurde as firmly as he could. "And I could not ride to Brussels--even though some one were waiting for me there--I really am not able to ride further. I would prefer to sit here and rest." "I don't like to leave you . . . after . . . after what you have done for me . . . I would like to . . ." "I would like you to scramble into that saddle and go," retorted Bobby with a momentary return to his usual good-natured irony, "and to leave me in peace." "I'll send out a conveyance for you," rejoined St. Genis. "I know M. le Comte de Cambray would wish . . ." "Mention my name to M. le Comte at your peril . . ." began Clyffurde. "But . . ." "By the Lord, man," now exclaimed Bobby with a sudden burst of energy, "if you do not go, I vow that sick as I am, and sick though you may be, I'll yet manage to punch your aching head." Then as the other--still reluctantly--turned to take hold of the horse's bridle, he added more gently: "Can you mount?" "Oh, yes! I am better now." "You won't turn giddy, and fall off your horse?" "I don't think so." "Talk about the halt leading the blind!" murmured Clyffurde as he stretched himself out once more upon the soft ground, whilst Maurice contrived to hoist himself up into the saddle. "Are you safe now?" he added as the young man collected the reins in his hand, and planted his feet firmly into the stirrups.