"Bah!" he said, "let her go. There is no stopping them, when they
are 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 to
see them unless they be very great.
Mathilde had told Desiree that Colonel de Casimir made no mention of
Charles in his letter to her. Barlasch was able to supply but
little further information on the matter.
"It was given to me by the Captain Louis d'Arragon at Thorn," he
said. "He handled it as if it were not too clean. And he had
nothing to say about it. You know his way, for the rest. He says
little; but he knows the look of things. It seemed that he had
promised to deliver the letter--for some reason, who knows what? and
he kept his promise. The man was not dying by any chance--that De
Casimir?"
And his little sharp eyes, reddened by the smoke of camp-fires,
inflamed by the glare of sun on snow, searched her face. He was
thinking of the treasure.
"Oh no!"
"Was he ill at all?"
"He was in bed," answered Desiree, doubtfully.
Barlasch scratched his head without ceremony, and fell into a long
train of thought.
"Do you know what I think?" he said at length. "I think that De
Casimir was not ill at all--any more than I am; I, Barlasch. Not so
ill, perhaps, as I am, for I have an indigestion. It is always
there at the summit of the stomach. It is horse without salt.
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