He paused ere concluding what he was saying, and, reining in his horse, stared fixedly into a dense copse that bordered the side of the drive. He stared at something he saw moving suspiciously through the undergrowth and as though with the desire of avoiding attention. Recollecting, however, that, on such a night as this, and after a great hunt in the vast forest which, at that time, covered very nearly a hundred square miles of ground, and where, too, hundreds of villagers, _vauriens_ and ne'er-do-wells generally would be about, he muttered, "Psha! what need to be surprised at the sight of any creeping, crawling vagabond here," and withdrew his hand with almost a feeling of self-contempt from the holster towards which he had thrust it.
As, however, he again set his horse in motion, he saw that which, in all likelihood, had caused the creeping figure to take shelter in the undergrowth, if it was not due to his own appearance. Coming up the long avenue from the direction where, afar off, Paris lay, was one of those vehicles known as a _chaise roulante_--a small carriage which would hold but one person; a thing not much larger than a sedan-chair, but which was transported on two wheels and had a seat in front for the driver. To-night, since it was entirely dark, a lamp placed by the driver's side was alight and the rays from it were sufficient to illuminate the whole of the interior of the small carriage.
Attracted by the appearance of this vehicle, wondering who could be coming in so plain and common a conveyance to Fontainebleau at this hour--Fontainebleau, with the King in residence!--De Beaurepaire could not resist the impulse of curiosity which impelled him to glance in at the occupant.
Then, suddenly, his hands so tightened on the reins they held that his high-mettled horse rose on its hind legs and, in its rearing, nearly threw him.
He had tightened the reins thus as he saw a white, death-like looking face gazing out as he glanced in at the window; a face from out of which two hollow eyes stared into the darkness of the night.
"_Dieu!_" De Beaurepaire whispered, even as he knew, as he divined, that he had himself turned as white as that sepulchral-looking face inside the _chaise roulante_, and while he felt his whole body suffused with the perspiration that burst from every pore. "He is alive. And he knows all. To-night the King will know all, too. He must be here to tell him all!"