.

THE ESCAPE.
In a small back room on the second floor of the inn at Angers, a mean, dingy room which looked into a narrow lane, and commanded no prospect more informing than a blind wall, two men sat, fretting; or, rather, one man sat, his chin resting on his hand, while his companion, less patient or more sanguine, strode ceaselessly to and fro.

In the first despair of capture--for they were prisoners--they had made up their minds to the worst, and the slow hours of two days had passed over their heads without kindling more than a faint spark of hope in their breasts.

But when they had been taken out and forced to mount and ride--at first with feet tied to the horses' girths--they had let the change, the movement, and the open air fan the flame.

They had muttered a word to one another, they had wondered, they had reasoned.