“Very likely, sire. But yet, on reflection, it could hardly have been that, for De Guiche’s pistol was found close by him still loaded.”

“His pistol? But a man does not go to a boar-hunt with a pistol, I should think.”

“Sire, it is also said that De Guiche’s horse was killed and that the horse is still to be found in the wide open glade in the forest.”

“His horse? — Guiche go on horseback to a boar-hunt? — Saint-Aignan, I do not understand a syllable of what you have been telling me.

Where did this affair happen?”

“At the Rond-point, in that part of the forest called the Bois-Rochin.”