I have my
orders; I shall take the field with veterans who don't skulk, and face
an enemy you want to catch behind."
"Oh, you can fight if you want to," replied Corentin. "From what that
girl has dropped, close-mouthed as you think she is, I can tell you
that you'll have to skirmish about, and I myself will give you the
pleasure of an interview with the Gars before long."
"How so?" asked Hulot, moving back a step to get a better view of this
strange individual.
"Mademoiselle de Verneuil is in love with him," replied Corentin, in
a thick voice, "and perhaps he loves her. A marquis, a knight of
Saint-Louis, young, brilliant, perhaps rich,--what a list of
temptations! She would be foolish indeed not to look after her own
interests and try to marry him rather than betray him. The girl is
attempting to fool us. But I saw hesitation in her eyes. They probably
have a rendezvous; perhaps they've met already. Well, to-morrow I shall
have him by the forelock. Yesterday he was nothing more than the enemy
of the Republic, to-day he is mine; and I tell you this, every man who
has been so rash as to come between that girl and me has died upon the
scaffold."
So saying, Corentin dropped into a reverie which hindered him from
observing the disgust on the face of the honest soldier as he
discovered the depths of this intrigue, and the mechanism of the means
employed by Fouche.
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