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The scene is laid in the picturesque Marche country on the confines of Berry, a day's journey from Nohant, and we are glad to linger with her along the rocky banks of the Creuse, or among the ruined castles of Crozant and Châteaubrun. The novel contains much that is original and admirable in the drawing of characters of the most opposite classes.
The three of them, one behind the other, climbed up and down the steep slopes of the country and arrived at Crozant, famed for the colossal ruins of its castle. There Charel made a halt of an hour's duration. Next he went down to the riverside and crossed the bridge. But then a thing happened that took Beautrelet by surprise. The other man did not cross the river.
Then, at last, he went away by a quite different road, which ran in the direction of Crozant and the market-town of Eguzon. Beautrelet followed him along this road. But he had not walked five minutes before he received the impression that he was not alone in shadowing the old fellow.
Neither the grottoes and cascades of Tivoli, the cypress and ilex gardens of Frascati and Albano, nor the ruins of Tusculum, were ever so pleasant to her eyes as the poplar-fringed banks of the Indre, the corn-land sand hedgerows of Berry, and the rocky borders of the Creuse at Crozant and Argenton. She had not ceased making fresh picturesque discoveries in her own neighborhood.
But reflecting that he had a score of relations in Poitou who might give trouble, and, besides that, his position called for some degree of consideration, I parted with him gravely, and hastened to put as many leagues between us as possible. That night we slept at Crozant, and the next at St. Gaultier.
Beautrelet interrupted him quickly: "They know all about that outlet. It was obviously by this way that the man whom I followed entered the park. Come, it's fine game and we shall win it. But, by Jupiter, we must play our cards carefully!" Two days later, a half-famished horse dragged a gipsy caravan into Crozant.
He jumped on his bicycle, rode to Eguzon, woke up the gendarmerie, set them all going, made them sound the boot and saddle and returned to Crozant at eight o'clock, accompanied by the sergeant and eight gendarmes. Two of the men were posted beside the gipsy-van. Two others took up their positions outside the postern-door.
The man who stood before him, the man whom the brutal force of events compelled him to look upon as Arsene Lupin, was Valmeras! Valmeras, the owner of the Chateau de l'Aiguille! Valmeras, the very man to whom he had applied for assistance against Arsene Lupin! Valmeras, his companion on the expedition to Crozant!
Still I did not think that he had been serious in his plea, and that which happened on the following morning took me completely by surprise. We had left Crozant an hour, and I was considering whether, the road being bad, we should even now reach Gueret before night, when Parabere, who had made some excuse to ride forward, returned, to me with signs of embarrassment in his manner.
The second afternoon we reached Crozant. Here I began to observe those signs of neglect and disorder which, at the close of the war, had been common in all parts of France, but in the more favoured districts had been erased by a decade of peace. Briars and thorns choked the roads, which ran through morasses, between fields which the husbandman had resigned to tares and undergrowth.
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