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Updated: May 14, 2025
At last, but not without considerable reluctance, the baron yielded. "You desire it, cure," he sighed, "so I obey. Come, Poignot, my boy, take me back to your father's house."
This duel had another witness, a man named Poignot, whom you must remember; he was one of your father's tenants. He took Jean, promising me that he would conceal him and care for him. "As for the marquis, he showed me that he too was wounded, and then he remounted his horse, saying: "'What could I do? He would have it so." Marie-Anne understood now.
So it was decided that Father Poignot should accompany Marie-Anne to the frontier that very night; there she would take the diligence that ran between Piedmont and Montaignac, passing through the village of Sairmeuse. It was with the greatest care that the abbe dictated to Marie-Anne the story she was to tell of her sojourn in foreign lands.
It will be easy to communicate with you; and with ordinary precautions there can be no danger. Before your departure we will decide upon a place of rendezvous, and two or three times a week you can meet Father Poignot there. And, in the course of two or three months you can be still more useful to us.
"All ready?" inquired young Poignot. "Yes," replied the invalid. The cart, driven with the utmost caution by the young peasant, started slowly on its way. Mme. d'Escorval, leaning upon the abbe's arm, walked about twenty paces in the rear.
Mme. d'Escorval and the abbe had now overtaken the cart. "It is very strange that Marie-Anne does not hear me," remarked young Poignot, turning to them. "We cannot take the baron to the house until we have seen her. She knows that very well. Shall I run up and warn her?" "She is asleep, perhaps," replied the abbe; "you stay with your horse, my boy, and I will go and wake her."
Jean Lacheneur, more fortunate, was on his feet by the end of the week. Forty days had passed, when one evening it was the 17th of April while the abbe was reading a newspaper to the baron, the door gently opened and one of the Poignot boys put in his head, then quickly withdrew it. The priest finished the paragraph, laid down the paper, and quietly went out.
Soon afterward, Father Poignot, on returning from Montaignac, reported that the duke had just passed a week in Paris, and that he was now on his way home with one more decoration another proof of royal favor and that he had succeeded in obtaining an order for the release of all the conspirators, who were now in prison.
So the next day she was more cheerful than she had been for months, and once, while putting her little house in order, she was surprised to find herself singing at her work. Eight o'clock was sounding when she heard a peculiar whistle. It was the signal of the younger Poignot, who came bringing an arm-chair for the sick man, the abbe's box of medicine, and a bag of books.
"Ah!" she thought, "the Marquis de Sairmeuse would be a hero if he were sincere!" And she did not wish him to be a hero. The result of these suspicions was that she hesitated five days before repairing to the rendezvous where Father Poignot usually awaited her. When she did go, she found, not the worthy farmer, but Abbe Midon, who had been greatly alarmed by her long absence.
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