It was scarcely dawn when the fugitives crossed the wood of Quesnay; at Langannerie they left the highroad and crossed by Bretteville-le-Rabet. It was now broad daylight, barns were opening, and people looked astonished at this strange couple who seemed to have been walking all night; the Marquise especially puzzled them, with her hair clinging to her cheeks, her skirts soaked and her slippers covered with mud. But no one dared question them. At six in the morning Mme. de Combray and her companion arrived at Saint-Sylvain, five good leagues from Falaise. If Mme. Acquet had succeeded in leaving Noron they ought to meet her there. Lefebre enquired at the inn, but no one had been there. They waited for two hours which the lawyer employed in seeking a waggon to go on to Lisieux. A peasant agreed to take them for fifteen francs paid in advance, and about eight o'clock, as Mme. Acquet had not arrived they decided to start. They stopped at Croissanville a little further on, and while breakfasting, Lefebre wrote to Lanoe telling him to find Mme. Acquet at once and tell her to hasten to her mother at Tournebut. The rest of the journey was uneventful. They reached Lisieux at supper-time and slept there. The next day Mme. de Combray took two places under an assumed name, in the coach for Evreux, where they arrived in the evening. The fugitives had a refuge in the Rue de l'Union with an old Chouan named Vergne, who had been in orders before the Revolution, but had become a doctor since the pacification. Next day Mme. de Combray and Lefebre made five leagues from Evreux to Louviers; they got out before entering the town as the Marquise wished to avoid the Hotel du Mouton where she was known. They went by side streets to the bridge of the Eure where they hired a carriage which took them by nightfall to the hamlet of Val-Tesson. They were now only a league from Tournebut which they could reach by going through the woods. But would they not find gendarmes there? Mme. de Combray's flight might have aroused suspicion at Falaise, Caen and Bayeux, and brought police supervision to her house. It was nine in the evening when, after an hour's walk, she reached the Hermitage. She thought it prudent to send Lefebre on ahead, and accompanied him to the gate where she left him to venture in alone. All appeared tranquil in the chateau, the lawyer went into the kitchen where he found a scullery maid who called Soyer, the confidential man, and Mme. de Combray only felt safe when she saw the latter himself come to open a door into the garden; she then slipped, without being seen, into her own room. CHAPTER VI THE YELLOW HORSE