It was close upon ten o'clock as we rode into the yard of the imposing Hotel de la Couronne at Grenade.
Castelroux engaged a private room on the first floor--a handsome chamber overlooking the courtyard--and in answer to the inquiries that I made I was informed by the landlord that Monsieur de Marsac was not yet arrived.
"My assignation was 'before noon,' Monsieur de Castelroux," said I. "With your permission, I would wait until noon."
He made no difficulty. Two hours were of no account. We had all risen very early, and he was, himself, he said, entitled to some rest.
Whilst I stood by the window it came to pass than a very tall, indifferently apparelled gentleman issued from the hostelry and halted for some moments in conversation with the ostler below. He walked with an enfeebled step, and leaned heavily for support upon a stout cane. As he turned to reenter the inn I had a glimpse of a face woefully pale, about which, as about the man's whole figure, there was a something that was familiar--a something that puzzled me, and on which my mind was still dwelling when presently I sat down to breakfast with Castelroux.
It may have been a half-hour later, and, our meal being at an end, we were sitting talking--I growing impatient the while that this Monsieur de Marsac should keep me waiting so--when of a sudden the rattle of hoofs drew me once more to the window. A gentleman, riding very recklessly, had just dashed through the porte-cochere, and was in the act of pulling up his horse. He was a lean, active man, very richly dressed, and with a face that by its swarthiness of skin and the sable hue of beard and hair looked almost black.
"Ah, you are there!" he cried, with something between a snarl and a laugh, and addressing somebody within the shelter of the porch. "Par la mort Dieu, I had hardly looked to find you!"
From the recess of the doorway I heard a gasp of amazement and a cry of "Marsac! You here?"
So this was the gentleman I was to see! A stable boy had taken his reins, and he leapt nimbly to the ground. Into my range of vision hobbled now the enfeebled gentleman whom earlier I had noticed.
"My dear Stanislas!" he cried, "I cannot tell you how rejoiced I am to see you!" and he approached Marsac with arms that were opened as if to embrace him.
The newcomer surveyed him a moment in wonder, with eyes grown dull. Then abruptly raising his hand, he struck the fellow on the breast, and thrust him back so violently that but for the stable-boy's intervention he had of a certainty fallen. With a look of startled amazement on his haggard face, the invalid regarded his assailant.