"Then, my good lad," answered the valet, "you will please tell your master that the colonel expects to see him this morning, before noon, to settle with him a matter about some linen that he spoke about with your mistress yesterday. Here is my master's address," added the valet, placing a visiting card upon the counter. "Above all be certain to urge your master to be punctual. The colonel does not like to be kept waiting." The valet left. Gildas took up the card mechanically, read it and cried out, turning pale: "By St. Anne of Auray! It is incredible--" "What is it, Gildas?" "Read, Jeanike!" And with a trembling hand he reached out the card to the young girl who read: COUNT GONTHRAM OF PLOUERNEL. Colonel of Dragoons. 18 Paradis-Poissonniere Street. "A puzzling, a fear-inspiring house this is!" Gildas repeated several times, raising his hands to heaven, while Jeanike herself looked as astonished and almost as frightened as the young shop-assistant. CHAPTER II. GEORGE DUCHENE. While the events narrated in the preceding chapter were happening in the shop of Monsieur Lebrenn the linendraper, another scene was taking place at almost the same hour on the fifth story of an old house, opposite the one which the Breton merchant occupied. I shall take my reader into a modest little room that is fitted out with extreme neatness; an iron bedstead, a wardrobe, two chairs and a table above which stood a shelf filled with books--such was its furniture. At the head of the bed hung from the wall a species of trophy, consisting of a military cap and two light infantry under-officer's epaulettes, above which, spread in a black frame, was an honorable discharge from service. In a corner of the chamber, and disposed upon a board, were several carpenter's tools. Upon the bed lay a freshly furbished carbine, and upon a little table a little heap of balls, a gunpowder pouch, and a mold to prepare cartridges in, a number of which had already been gotten ready. The tenant of the apartment, a young man of about twenty-six, with a virile and handsome face, and wearing a mechanic's blouse, was already up. With his elbows leaning on the sill of his attic window, he seemed to be looking intently at the house of Monsieur Lebrenn, especially at one of the four windows, between two of which the famous sign of _The Sword of Brennus_ was fastened. That one particular window, furnished with very white curtains closely drawn together, presented nothing remarkable to the sight, except for a wooden box, painted green and daintily wrought with ovolos and other carvings, that filled the full width of the outer sill and contained several winter heliotropes besides some crocuses in full bloom.