And for the second time on this eventful night, Mme. la Duchesse d'Agen and Mlle. Crystal de Cambray, together with faithful Jeanne, were forced to alight from the coach and to stand by while the cushions of the carriage were being turned over by the light of a flickering lanthorn and every corner of the interior ransacked for the elusive treasure.
"There is nothing here, mon Colonel," said a gruff voice out of the darkness, after a while.
A loud curse broke from de Marmont's lips.
"You are satisfied?" asked the Comte coldly, "that I have told you the truth?"
"Search the luggage in the boot," cried de Marmont savagely, without heeding him, "search the men on the box! bring more light here! That money is somewhere in this coach, I'll swear. If I do not find it I'll take every one here back a prisoner to Grenoble . . . or . . ."
He paused, himself ashamed of what he had been about to say.
"Or you will order your soldiers to lay hands upon our persons, is that it, M. de Marmont?" broke in Crystal coldly.
He made no reply, for of a truth that had been his thought: foiled in his hope of rendering his beloved Emperor so signal a service, he had lost all sense of chivalry in this overwhelming feeling of baffled rage.
Crystal's cold challenge recalled him to himself, and now he felt ashamed of what he had just contemplated, ashamed, too, of what he had done. He hated the Comte . . . he hated all royalists and all enemies of the Emperor . . . but he hated the Comte doubly because of the insults which he (de Marmont) had had to endure that evening at Brestalou. He had looked upon this expedition as a means of vengeance for those insults, a means, too, of showing his power and his worth before Crystal and of winning her through that power which the Emperor had given him, and through that worth which the Emperor had recognised.
But, though he hated the Comte he knew him to be absolutely incapable of telling a deliberate lie, and absolutely incapable of bartering his word of honour for the sake of his own safety.
Crystal's words brought this knowledge back to his mind; and now the desire seized him to prove himself as chivalrous as he was powerful. He was one of those men who are so absolutely ignorant of a woman's nature that they believe that a woman's love can be won by deeds as apart from personality, and that a woman's dislike and contempt can be changed into love. He loved Crystal more absolutely now than he had ever done in the days when he was practically her accepted suitor: his unbridled and capricious nature clung desperately to that which he could not hold, and since he had felt--that evening at Brestalou--that his political convictions had placed an insuperable barrier between himself and Crystal de Cambray, he felt that no woman on earth could ever be quite so desirable.