“The goddess Venus has certainly taken us under her protection. A grand hunt of some kind is to take place to-morrow out in the direction of Thury; I know no particulars about it, all I do know is, that _he_ is going away this evening. You, therefore, start at nine o’clock, so as to be here at half-past ten. Come in by the way you know; someone whom you know will be awaiting you, and will bring you, you know where. Last time you came, I don’t mean to upbraid you, but it did seem to me you stayed a long time in the corridors. “JANE.” “Devil take it!” muttered Thibault. “I beg your pardon, my lord?” said the stable-boy. “Nothing, you lout, except that I do not require you any longer and you can go.” “A good journey to you, my lord!” said the stable-boy, bowing to the ground, and he went back to his stable. “Devil take it!” repeated Thibault, “the letter gives me precious little information, except that we are under the protection of the Goddess Venus, that _he_ goes away this evening, that the Comtesse de Mont-Gobert expects me at half-past ten, and that her Christian name is Jane. As for the rest, I am to go in by _the way I know_, I shall be awaited by _someone I know_, and taken _where I know_.” Thibault scratched his ear, which is what everybody does, in every country of the world, when plunged into awkward circumstances. He longed to go and wake up the Lord of Vauparfond’s spirit, which was just now sleeping in Thibault’s body on Thibault’s bed; but, apart from the loss of time which this would involve, it might also cause considerable inconvenience, for the Baron’s spirit, on seeing its own body so near to it, might be taken with the desire of re-entering it. This would give rise to a struggle in which Thibault could not well defend himself without doing serious harm to his own person; some other way out of the difficulty must therefore be found. He had heard a great deal about the wonderful sagacity of animals, and had himself, during his life in the country, had occasion more than once to admire their instinct, and he now determined to trust to that of his horse. Riding back into the main road, he turned the horse in the direction of Mont-Gobert, and let it have its head. The horse immediately started off at a gallop; it had evidently understood. Thibault troubled himself no further, it was now the horse’s affair to bring him safely to his destination. On reaching the corner of the park wall the animal stopped, not apparently because it was in doubt as to which road to take, but something seemed to make it uneasy, and it pricked its ears. At the same time, Thibault also fancied that he caught sight of two shadows; but they must have been only shadows, for although he stood up in his stirrups and looked all around him, he could see absolutely nothing. They were probably poachers he thought, who had reasons like himself for wishing to get inside the park. There being no longer anything to bar his passage, he had only, as