Hitherto he had stood unmoved by the discussion, looking with a smile from one to the other of us; but at this he struck in. "With pleasure, Monsieur," he said. "My name is Alibon, and I am an advocate of Montauban, who last week had the good fortune----" "No," I said, interrupting him brusquely, and once for all; "I think not. Not Alibon of Montauban. Froment of Nîmes, I think, Monsieur." A little tract of snow flushed by the sunset lay behind him, and by contrast darkened his face; I could not see how he took my words. And a few seconds elapsed before he answered. When he did, however, he spoke calmly, and I fancied I detected as much vanity as chagrin in his tone. "Well, Monsieur," he said, "and if I am? What then?" "If you are," I replied resolutely, meeting his eyes, "I decline to travel with you." "And therefore," he retorted, "Madame, whose carriage this is, must not travel with me!" "No, since she cannot travel without me," I answered with spirit. He frowned at that; but in a moment, "And why?" he said with a sneer. "Am I not good enough for your excellency's company?" "It is not a question of goodness," I said bluntly, "but of a passport, Monsieur. If you ask me, I do not travel with you because I hold a commission under the present Government, and I believe you to be working against that Government. I have lied for Madame St. Alais and her daughter. She was a woman and I had to save her. But I will not lie for you, nor be your cloak. Is that plain, Monsieur?" "Quite," he said slowly. "Yet I serve the King. Whom do you serve?" I was silent. "Whose is this commission, Monsieur, that must not be contaminated?" I writhed under the sneer, but I was silent. "Come, M. le Vicomte," he continued frankly, and in a different tone. "Be yourself, I pray. I am Froment, you have guessed it. I am also a fugitive, and were my name spoken in Villeraugues, a league on, I should hang for it. And in Ganges the like. I am at your mercy, therefore, and I ask you to shelter me. Let me pass through Suméne and Ganges as one of your party; thenceforth onwards," he added with a smile and a gesture of conscious pride, "I can shift for myself." I do not wonder I hesitated, I wonder I resisted. It seemed so small a thing to ask, so great a thing to refuse, that, though half a minute before my mind had been made up, I wavered; wavered miserably. I felt my face burn, I felt the passionate ardour of Madame's eyes as they devoured it, I felt the call of the silence for my answer. And I was near assenting. But as I turned feverishly in my seat to avoid Madame's look, my hand touched the packet which contained the commission, and the contact wrought a revulsion of feeling. I saw the thing as I had seen it before, and, rightly or wrongly, revolted from that which I had nearly done. "No," I cried angrily. "I will not! I will not!" "You coward!" Madame cried with sudden passion. And she sprang up as if to strike me, but sat down again trembling.