replied the young man, “for I have at this moment the same, and think also that I shall never see Messieurs du Vallon and d’Herblay again.”

“Oh!

you,” replied the count, “you speak like a man rendered sad by a different cause; you see everything in black; you are young, and if you chance never to see those old friends again, it will because they no longer exist in the world in which you have yet many years to pass. But I — ”

Raoul shook his head sadly, and leaned upon the shoulder of the count, without either of them finding another word in their hearts, which were ready to overflow.

All at once a noise of horses and voices, from the extremity of the road to Blois,