CHAPTER V.
SIGNED "GAUVAIN."
When he awoke it was day.
The beggar was up, not in the hut, for there was not room to stand upright there, but outside near the entrance. He was leaning on his stick. The sun shone on his face.
"Monseigneur," said Tellmarch, "it has just struck four from the belfry of Tanis. I heard the four strokes. So the wind has changed, it is blowing off shore: I hear no other sound, so the tocsin has ceased. Everything is quiet at the farm and in the hamlet of Herbe-en-Pail. The Blues are either asleep, or have gone. The worst of the danger is over; it would be wise for us to separate. It is my time for going away."
He indicated a point on the horizon.
"I am going that way."
He pointed in the opposite direction.
"You must go this way."
The beggar saluted the marquis solemnly.
Pointing to what was left of the supper he added: "Carry the chestnuts with you, if you are hungry."
A moment later, he had disappeared among the trees.
The marquis rose and went in the direction Tellmarch had pointed out to him.
It was the charming morning hour called in the old Norman peasant tongue, the "piperette du jour,"—the song sparrow of the day. The finches and hedge sparrows were chirping. The marquis followed the path by which they had come the night before. He left the thicket and was again at the parting of the roads marked by the stone cross. The placard was still there, white and almost gay in the light of the rising sun. He remembered that there was something at the bottom of the placard which he could not read the evening before because the letters were so small, and there was so little light. He went up to the pedestal of the cross. The
