"He is a Frenchman, madam."
"Does he seem to be noble?"
"Yes, madam, he carries a sword."
"Marchioness," said the Abbot excitedly as if struck by a sudden thought, "it may be this individual found the letter, and is bringing it back to me. God be praised! our alarm will be at end! Oh, I hope it may be so!"
"But how could the stranger know your address?"
"Did I not write to Raoul that we were stopping with Monsieur Tilly?"
"In that case, Abbot," replied the Marchioness with an accent of extreme apprehension, "the stranger must have read the letter! We would have a stranger informed upon our plans! We must have light upon this, and quickly."
And addressing the lackey:
"Introduce the stranger immediately, and then withdraw."
"The more I think upon it," said Mademoiselle Plouernel to herself, astonished and pensive, "all the more unexplainable does my aunt's and the Abbot's uneasiness seem to me."
The personage whom the lackey introduced into the salon was a man of about forty-five years of age; he was simply dressed, without lace or embroidery; for all sign of rank he wore on his shoulders a scarlet knot of the color of the feather in his grey felt hat, and the ribbon of his sword that hung from a leather baldric. The tawny complexion of the stranger, his quick, penetrating eye, black as his moustache, seemed to indicate a southern extraction. Of middle size, robust and sinewy, resolute in his port and endowed with a physiognomy in which intelligence and wit vied with boldness, everything about him revealed a man of energy and decision, but so completely master of himself that nothing, except what he had no interest in concealing, would be allowed to rise to the surface. The new personage presented himself in the salon with complete ease, bowed respectfully to the Marchioness and her niece, and looked from the one to the other in silence with so marked, so fixed a gaze, that the Marchioness of Tremblay felt embarrassed and said to her niece:
"Come, Bertha, let us withdraw to my chamber, and leave Monsieur the Abbot with monsieur."
Bertha of Plouernel was preparing to follow her aunt when, after having again contemplated the young maid, the stranger bowed once more to the Marchioness, and said:
"If Madam the Marchioness will allow, the interview that I desire to hold with her and with monsieur, Abbot Boujaron, will take place in the presence of Mademoiselle Plouernel. It is proper, it is even necessary that this should be."
"You know us, monsieur?" said the Marchioness, not a little astonished. "You know our names?"
"I have the honor, madam; and my little knowledge extends further than that," answered the stranger with a singular smile, again casting a penetrating glance at Mademoiselle Plouernel, as if he sought to judge her mind by the expression on her face. On his face, in turn, the evidence of a heightening interest in the girl could be detected. But as these manifestations passed unperceived by Bertha, she felt hurt by the persistence of the stranger's gaze, she blushed, and taking a step towards the door of her aunt's chamber said to the Marchioness:
"Excuse me, aunt, if I go and leave you with the gentlemen."
"Mademoiselle," said the stranger warmly, as he divined the maid's thoughts, "I conjure you, do not impute the obstinacy of my gaze to a disregard of the respect due you, and with which I am profoundly penetrated; I sought to read and I did read on your features the uprightness and nobility of your heart; I doubly congratulate myself on being able to render you a service, a great service."
"Me, monsieur?" answered Mademoiselle Plouernel in great astonishment, yet struck by the accent of unquestionable sincerity in the stranger's words. "What service can you render to me, me whom you do not know, and whom you now see for the first time? Be kind enough to explain yourself more clearly."
"Monsieur," said the Marchioness haughtily to the stranger, as he was about to answer Bertha, "you introduced yourself into this house under pretext of soliciting an interview, which Monsieur Abbot Boujaron has condescended to grant you. That notwithstanding, you have hitherto addressed mademoiselle only—a violation of propriety towards me and Monsieur the Abbot."
"Moreover, monsieur," added the Abbot, "we are wholly in the dark as to who you are. Your language is as strange as your visit."
"I am your obedient servant, Monsieur Abbot," answered the stranger, bowing with sardonic courtesy, "and I shall, if you please, answer Mademoiselle Plouernel, who has done me the honor of asking me what the service is that I am happy enough to be able to render her. The service is summed up in this simple advice: Mademoiselle, go not to England; refuse to undertake the voyage."
A tremor ran over Bertha's frame; for an instant she remained dumb with stupefaction, while, scarlet with confusion and apprehension, both her aunt and the Abbot exchanged significant looks that betrayed their embarrassment. Struck speechless for an instant, Mademoiselle Plouernel turned to the stranger and asked:
"And why, monsieur, do you warn me against the journey to England?"
"For two reasons, mademoiselle, two important reasons—"
"Monsieur," the Abbot interrupted the stranger with, in an icy tone, "I wish to call your attention, first, to the fact that you have committed a breach of confidence; secondly, that you have not understood a word of the letter that you found and that you took the freedom of reading—an indiscretion that a man of good breeding would have carefully guarded against."
"And I, in turn, will call your attention, Monsieur Abbot," retorted the stranger, "first, to the fact that to read an unsealed letter, found on the pavement of a public thoroughfare, is no breach of confidence; secondly, that, without priding myself on being gifted with extraordinary intellectual power, yet am I intelligent enough to understand the value of words. For that reason I have advised mademoiselle not to go to England, and resolutely to refuse to undertake the journey."
"Monsieur," broke in Bertha with profound feeling, as she yielded to a sudden and painful sense of danger that flashed through her mind. "I ask it as a favor of you, explain yourself clearly. Be good enough to give me your reasons for the advice."
"One moment, my dear child," the Abbot hastened to interpose, in order to parry off the stranger's answer; "I am the writer of that letter; it is for me to speak intelligently upon it. I can tell monsieur that the despatch which he read is addressed to an envoy of his Majesty Louis XIV at the court of his Majesty Charles II, and that it deals with very delicate affairs of state. Now, then, I must add, that unless one be the most reckless of men, which I certainly am not, one does not conduct a correspondence upon matters of such a nature, except in cipher, or by means of enigmatic phrases, that bear a double sense, both of which seem perfectly logical on their face, but the real purport of which remains secret between the correspondents themselves, who are alone able to interpret it. It will be well for monsieur to understand that."
"If that is the case, Monsieur Abbot, there will be nothing left to me but to admit a mistake," replied the stranger with mock humility, "a mistake, however, that was quite excusable, and of which I request Mademoiselle Plouernel herself to be the judge," he added, taking the letter out of his pocket, "from the terms in which this interesting missive is couched."
"Monsieur, the reading of the letter is wholly superfluous, it being established that the letter no wise concerns mademoiselle."
"No doubt," replied the stranger, "mademoiselle is not touched upon in it except in an enigmatic and mysterious manner. Accordingly, when Monsieur the Abbot writes to Monsieur the Count of Plouernel:
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