Through the whole of that day we travelled on, accompanied, as it appeared to me, by a small party of horse; but, nevertheless, Gaspard de Belleville did not again make his appearance, and towards night we halted at a village near Joigny. Here a surgeon was procured for me, who, though none of the best, contrived to extract the ball out of my side, after putting me to terrible torture for nearly half an hour. The relief, however, that I experienced was immediate; and the wound being properly dressed, I fell sound asleep, even before I was removed from the table on which the operation had been performed. The next morning early I found Suzette again by the side of the straw-bed on which I was stretched; and by this time I had recovered sufficient strength to ask her what had become of Father Ferdinand and Mademoiselle de Villardin, when the château of Virmont had been burned. She replied, that she could not tell, as she had not come up till afterwards; and she added, at the same time, an injunction not to trouble myself about other people, but to keep as quiet as circumstances would permit, out of consideration for myself. This warning was uttered with a touch of that flippancy which had been her characteristic while in the service of Madame de Villardin, but it was the only remaining trait of the kind that I now remarked. It was sufficient, however, to make me turn from her again in some degree of disgust, by awakening all the memories of the past; but she did not seem to perceive any emotion of the sort, and the party being once more prepared to set out, I was again placed on the wagon, though a pile of straw had been spread to form a sort of bed for me on the top of the packages, and a piece of canvas had been drawn across as an awning for my head. Another day's journey brought us about twenty miles further in Champagne, and towards four o'clock, the wagon in which I was placed stopped at the turning of a cross-road, near which was a farmhouse. A number of the peasants were called up to the side of the vehicle; and, under the directions of Suzette, several of the packages which it contained were carried down the road. A couple of planks were then procured, and, being tied together, I was placed thereon, and lifted up from the ground by four stout men, who proceeded to bear me in the direction which those who carried the baggage had already taken. At the distance of about a mile and a half from the high road we came to a house, which, though distinguishable in every respect from a farm, did not at all deserve the name of a château. It was, indeed, one of those dwellings which, at that time, were commonly called in France a _gentilhommière_, and which were generally inhabited by persons of gentle birth but small fortunes, who, after having served in the army the customary five or six years, retired to fit their younger children for becoming lawyers, abbés, and soldiers of fortune, while the heir to the estate prepared to tread