I was able by this time to go abroad a little, and I walked down to his cottage; I could learn no more there, however, than that a Capuchin monk had been his guest for two nights, and that M. le Curé had left for Cahors a few hours after the monk. That was all; I returned depressed and dissatisfied. Such villagers as I met by the way greeted me with respect, and even with sympathy--it was the first time I had gone into the hamlet; but the shadow of suspicion which I had detected on their faces some months before had grown deeper and darker with time. They no longer knew with certainty their places or mine, their rights or mine; and shy of me and doubtful of themselves, were glad to part from me. Near the gates of the avenue I met a man whom I knew; a wine-dealer from Aulnoy. I stayed to ask him if the family were at home. He looked at me in surprise. "No, M. le Vicomte," he said. "They left the country some weeks ago--after the King was persuaded to go to Paris." "And M. le Baron?" "He too." "For Paris?" The man, a respectable bourgeois, grinned at me. "No, Monsieur, I fancy not," he said. "You know best, M. le Vicomte; but if I said Turin, I doubt I should be little out." "I have been ill," I said. "And have heard nothing." "You should go into Cahors," he answered; with rough good-nature. "Most of the gentry are there--if they have not gone farther. It is safer than the country in these days. Ah, if my father had lived to see----" He did not finish the sentence in words, but raised his eyebrows and shoulders, saluted me, and rode away. In spite of his surprise it was easy to see that the change pleased him, though he veiled his satisfaction out of civility. I walked home feeling lonely and depressed. The tall stone house, the seigneurial tower and turret and dovecot, stripped of the veil of foliage that in summer softened their outlines, stood up bare and gaunt at the end of the avenue; and seemed in some strange way to share my loneliness and to speak to me of evil days on which we had alike fallen. In losing Father Benôit I had lost my only chance of society just when, with returning strength, the desire for companionship and a more active life was awakening. I thought of this gloomily; and then was delighted to see, as I approached the door, a horse tethered to the ring beside it. There were holsters on the saddle, and the girths were splashed. André was in the hall, but to my surprise, instead of informing me that there was a visitor, he went on dusting a table, with his back to me. "Who is here?" I said sharply. "No one," he answered. "No one? Then whose is that horse?" "The smith's, Monsieur." "What? Buton's?" "Ay, Buton's! It is a new thing hanging it at the front door," he added, with a sneer. "But what is he doing? Where is he?" "He is where he ought to be; and that is at the stables," the old fellow answered doggedly. "I'll be bound that it is the first piece of honest work he has done for many a day."