"You are going to Milhau?" he said, speaking abruptly, and with a strong country accent; yet in the tone of one addressing an equal. "Yes, Monsieur," I said. "But I doubt if I shall reach the town to-night." "I am going also," he answered. "My horse is in the village." And without saying more he walked beside me until we reached the hamlet. There--the place was deserted--he brought from an outhouse a sorry mare, and mounted. "What do you think of that rubbish?" he said suddenly as we took the road again. I had watched his proceedings in silence. "I fear that they expect too much," I answered guardedly. He laughed; a horse-laugh full of scorn. "They think that the millennium has come," he said. "And in a month they will find their barns burned and their throats cut." "I hope not," I said. "Oh, I hope not," he answered cynically. "I hope not, of course. But even so _Vive la Nation! Vive la Revolution!_" "What? If that be its fruit?" I asked. "Ay, why not?" he answered, his gloomy eyes fixed on me. "It is every one for himself, and what has the old rule done for me that I should fear to try the new? Left me to starve on an old rock and a dovecot; sheltered by bare stones, and eating out of a black pot! While women and bankers, scented fops and lazy priests prick it before the King! And why? Because I remain, sir, what half the nation once were." "A Protestant?" I hazarded. "Yes, Monsieur. And a poor noble," he answered bitterly. "The Baron de Géol, at your service." I gave him my name in return. "You wear the tricolour," he said; "yet you think me extreme? I answer, that that is all very well for you; but we are different people. You are doubtless a family man, M. le Vicomte, with a wife----" "On the contrary, M. le Baron." "Then a mother, a sister?" "No," I said, smiling. "I have neither. I am quite alone." "At least with a home," he persisted, "means, friends, employment, or the chance of employment?" "Yes," I said, "that is so." "Whereas I--I," he answered, growing guttural in his excitement, "have none of these things. I cannot enter the army--I am a Protestant! I am shut off from the service of the State--I am a Protestant! I cannot be a lawyer or a judge--I am a Protestant! The King's schools are closed to me--I am a Protestant! I cannot appear at Court--I am a Protestant! I--in the eyes of the law I do not exist! I--I, Monsieur," he continued more slowly, and with an air not devoid of dignity, "whose ancestors stood before Kings, and whose grandfather's great-grandfather saved the fourth Henry's life at Coutras--I do not exist!" "But now?" I said, startled by his tone of passion. "Ay, now," he answered grimly, "it is going to be different. Now, it is going to be otherwise, unless these black crows of priests put the clock back again. That is why I am on the road." "You are going to Milhau?" "I live near Milhau," he answered. "And I have been from home. But I am not going home now. I am going farther--to Nîmes."