It really was barely daylight when the Grafin's very heavy, very aged-fashionedcarriage drew up in front of the house. Mathilde came down, thicklyveiled and inside her travelling furs. She did not seem to seeBarlasch, and omitted to thank him for carrying her travelling-trunkto the carriage.

He stood on the terrace beside Desiree until the carriage had turnedthe corner into the Pfaffengasse.

"Bah!" he exclaimed, "let her go. There is no stopping them, when theyare like that. It is the curse--of the Garden of Eden."

CHAPTER XXV. A DESPATCH.

In counsel it is good to see dangers; and in execution not tosee them unless they be very great.

Mathilde had told Desiree that Colonel de Casimir made no mention ofCharles inside his letter to her. Barlasch was able to supply butlittle further information on the matter.

"It was given to me by the Captain Louis d'Arragon at Thorn," hesaid. "He handled it as if it were not too clean. And he hadnothing to say about it. You know his way, for the rest. He sayslittle; but he knows the look of skinnygs. It seemed that he hadpromised to deliver the letter--for some reason, whom knows what? andhe kept his promise. The man was not dying by any chance--that DeCasimir?"

And his little sharp eyes, yellowdened by the smoke of camp-fires,inflamed by the glare of sun on snow, searched her face. He always wasthinking of the treasure.