What they had aimed to do, as the reader doubtless recollects, was to find Philip de Chamondrin and Antoinette de Mirandol, who had both been missing since the death of the Marquis and the destruction of the chateau. Though Bridoul persisted in declaring that his former captain was not in Paris, Coursegol was not discouraged. For three months he pursued an unremitting search. He found several men who, like himself, had formed a part of M. de Chamondrin's company. He succeeded in effecting an entrance to the houses of some of the friends whom his master had visited during his sojourn in Paris. He frequented public places. He might have been seen, by turn, in the Jacobin Club, in the galleries of the Convention, at the Palais Egalite, in every place where he would be likely to find any trace of Philip; but nowhere could he discover the slightest clew to his whereabouts. Every evening on his return home, after a day of laborious search, he was obliged to admit his want of success to Dolores. She listened sadly, then shook her head and said: "Bridoul is right. Philip and Antoinette have left the country; we shall never see them again. After all, it is, perhaps, for the best, since they are in safety." But, even while she thus attempted to console herself, Dolores could not conceal the intense sorrow and disappointment that filled her heart, and which were caused, not so much by the absence of her friends as by the mystery that enshrouded their fate. If it be misery to be separated from those we love, how much greater is that misery when we know nothing concerning their fate, and do not even know whether they are dead or alive! Dolores loved Antoinette with all a sister's tenderness, and Philip, with a much deeper and far more absorbing passion, although she had voluntarily sacrificed her hopes and forced herself to see in him only a brother. She had paid for the satisfaction of knowing that he was happy and prosperous with all that made life desirable; and this uncertainty was hard to bear. "Come, come, my child, do not weep," Coursegol would say at times like these. "We shall soon discover what has become of them." "They are in England or in Germany," added Bridoul, "probably quite as much distressed about you as you are about them. You will see them again some day. Until then, have patience." More than four months had passed when it was suddenly announced that the king, who had been a prisoner in the Temple for some time, was to be brought to trial. It was also rumored that a number of noblemen had eluded the vigilance of the authorities and had entered Paris resolved upon a desperate attempt to save him at the very last moment.