After thus carrying out her resolution, Marie gave way to grief, and her face, beautified till then by these conflicting sentiments, changed for the worse so rapidly that in a single day, during which she floated incessantly between hope and despair, she lost the glow of beauty, and the freshness which has its source in the absence of passion or the ardor of joy. Anxious to ascertain the result of her mad enterprise, Hulot and Corentin came to see her soon after her return. She received them smiling. “Well,” she said to the commandant, whose care-worn face had a questioning expression, “the fox is coming within range of your guns; you will soon have a glorious triumph over him.” “What happened?” asked Corentin, carelessly, giving Mademoiselle de Verneuil one of those oblique glances with which diplomatists of his class spy on thought. “Ah!” she said, “the Gars is more in love than ever; I made him come with me to the gates of Fougeres.” “Your power seems to have stopped there,” remarked Corentin; “the fears of your _ci-devant_ are greater than the love you inspire.” “You judge him by yourself,” she replied, with a contemptuous look. “Well, then,” said he, unmoved, “why did you not bring him here to your own house?” “Commandant,” she said to Hulot, with a coaxing smile, “if he really loves me, would you blame me for saving his life and getting him to leave France?” The old soldier came quickly up to her, took her hand, and kissed it with a sort of enthusiasm. Then he looked at her fixedly and said in a gloomy tone: “You forget my two friends and my sixty-three men.” “Ah, commandant,” she cried, with all the naivete of passion, “he was not accountable for that; he was deceived by a bad woman, Charette’s mistress, who would, I do believe, drink the blood of the Blues.” “Come, Marie,” said Corentin, “don’t tease the commandant; he does not understand such jokes.” “Hold your tongue,” she answered, “and remember that the day when you displease me too much will have no morrow for you.” “I see, mademoiselle,” said Hulot, without bitterness, “that I must prepare for a fight.” “You are not strong enough, my dear colonel. I saw more than six thousand men at Saint-James,--regular troops, artillery, and English officers. But they cannot do much unless _he_ leads them? I agree with Fouche, his presence is the head and front of everything.” “Are we to get his head?--that’s the point,” said Corentin, impatiently. “I don’t know,” she answered, carelessly. “English officers!” cried Hulot, angrily, “that’s all that was wanting to make a regular brigand of him. Ha! ha! I’ll give him English, I will!” “It seems to me, citizen-diplomat,” said Hulot to Corentin, after the two had taken leave and were at some distance from the house, “that you allow that girl to send you to the right-about when she pleases.”