Not only the dejection of Mlle. de Varion made our ride a melancholy one, despite the radiance of the autumn morning. Blaise, repentant of his overindulgence, and still feeling the humiliation of the easy capture made of him by four scurvy knaves, had taken refuge in one of those moods of pious reflection which he attributed to maternal influence. Piqued at this reticence, the maid, Jeannotte, maintained a sulky silence. The two boys, devoted to their mistress, now faithfully reflected her sad and uneasy demeanor.

"Look, mademoiselle!" said I, glad of having found objects toward which to draw her attention, "yonder is the Chateau of Clochonne. Beyond that, and to the right, are the mountains for which we are bound. It is there that I shall introduce to you the Sieur de la Tournoire."

Mademoiselle looked at the distant towers and the mountains beyond with an expression of dread. She gave a heavy sigh and shuddered in her saddle.

"Nay, mademoiselle," I said; "you have nothing to fear there."

She turned pale, and answered, in a trembling voice:

"Alas, monsieur! Am I not about to put those mountains between myself and my father?"

I thought of the joy that I should cause and the grat.i.tude that I should win, should I succeed in bringing her father safe to her on those mountains, but I kept the thought to myself.

We skirted Clochonne by a wide detour, fording the Creuse at a secluded place, and ascended the wooded hills in single file. After a long and toilsome progress through pathless and deeply shaded wilds, we reached, in the afternoon, the forest inn kept by G.o.deau and his wife. It had been my intention to stop and rest here, and to send Blaise ahead to Maury, that one of the rooms of our ruined chateau might be made fit for mademoiselle's reception. I had expected to find the inn, as usual, without guests, but on approaching it we heard the sound of music proceeding from a stringed instrument. We stopped at the edge of the small, cleared s.p.a.ce before the inn and sent Blaise to reconnoitre. He boldly entered and presently returned, followed by the decrepit G.o.deau and his strapping wife, Marianne. Both gave us glad welcome, the old man with obsequious bows which doubtless racked his rheumatic joints, the woman with bustling cordiality.

"Be at ease, monsieur," said Marianne. "We have no one within except two gypsies, who will make music for you and tell your fortunes. G.o.deau, look to the horses."

I dismounted and a.s.sisted mademoiselle to descend. Then, on the pretext of giving an order, I took Marianne and G.o.deau aside, and bade them to address me as M. de Launay, not on any account as M. de la Tournoire. The old man then saw to our horses, and Marianne brought us wine.

"Before sunset," I said to mademoiselle, as I raised my gla.s.s, "you shall meet the Sieur de la Tournoire at his hiding-place."

Mlle. de Varion turned pale, and, as if suddenly too weak to stand, sat down on a wooden bench before the inn door. Jeannotte ran to support her.

"Before sunset!" she repeated, with a shudder.

"Yes, mademoiselle, unless you are too ill to proceed. I fear the fatigue of this ride has been too much for you."

She gave a look of relief, and replied:

"I fear that it has. I shall be better able to go on to-morrow,--unless there is danger in remaining here."

"There is very little danger. People crossing the mountains by way of Clochonne now use the new road, which is shorter. If, by any chance, soldiers from the Clochonne garrison should come this way and detain us as fleeing Huguenots, we could summon help,--for we are so near the hiding-place of the Sieur de la Tournoire."

Again that shudder! Decidedly, in the accounts that she had received of me, I must have been represented as a very terrible personage. I smiled at thinking of the surprise that awaited her in the disclosure of the truth.

It was thereupon arranged that we should stay at G.o.deau's inn until the next morning. Mademoiselle's portmanteaus were carried to the upper chamber, which was a mere loft, but preferable to the kitchen. Thither, after eating, she went to rest. Blaise then departed to direct the desired preparations at Maury, with orders to return to the inn before nightfall. Jeannotte and the two boys remained in the kitchen to hear the music of the two gypsies, a man and a girl. Having nothing better to do, I took my seat on the bench outside the inn and sat musing.

Late in the afternoon, I heard the light step of mademoiselle on the threshold. On seeing me, she stopped, as if it were I whom she had come out to seek I rose and offered her the bench. She sat down in silence, and for a moment her eyes rested on the ground, while on her face was a look of trouble. Suddenly she lifted her glance to mine and spoke abruptly, as if forcing herself to broach a subject on which she would rather have been silent.

"Monsieur," she said, "I suppose that the Sieur de la Tournoire, whom we are so soon to meet, is a very dear friend of yours!"

"A very close friend," I replied, with an inward smile. "And yet he has got me into so much trouble that I might fairly consider him my enemy."

"I must confess," said she, "that I have heard little of him but evil."

"It is natural that the Catholics in Berry should find nothing good to say of him," I replied. "Yet it is true that he is far from perfect,--a subtle rascal, who dons disguises, and masquerades as other than he is, a leader of night-birds, and sometimes a turbulent roysterer."

"I have been told," she said, "that he treacherously killed a man in Paris, and deserted from the French Guards."

"As for the killing," I replied, "there was no treachery or unfairness on his part; and if he deserted from the King's French Guards, it was when the King had consented to give him up to the Duke of Guise, whom the weak King, then as now, hated as much as feared."

She gave a heavy sigh, and went on, "La Tournoire is a brave man, of course?"

"He is a man," I said, "who expects to meet death as he meets life, cheerfully, not hoping too much, not fearing anything."

"And this hiding-place of his," she said, in a very low voice, again dropping her glance to the ground. "Tell me of it."

I gave her a description of the ruined Chateau of Maury.

"But," she said, "is not the place easily accessible to the troops of the Governor?"

"The troops of the garrison at Clochonne have not yet found the way to it," I replied. "The chateau was abandoned twenty years ago. Its master is an adventurer in the new world, if he is not dead. Its very existence has been forgotten, for the land pertaining to it is of no value. The soldiers from Clochonne could find it only by scouring this almost impenetrable wilderness."

"Is there, then, no road leading to it?" she asked.

"This road leads. .h.i.ther from Clochonne, and on southward across the mountain. There are the remains of a by-road leading from here westward to the chateau, and ending there. But this by-road, almost entirely recovered by the forest, is known only to La Tournoire and his friends. A better way for the Governor's soldiers to find La Tournoire's stronghold, if they but knew, would be to take the road along the river from Clochonne to Narjec, and to turn up the hill at the throne-shaped rock half-way between those towns. At the top of that hill is Maury, hidden by dense woods and thickets."

Mlle. de Varion, who had heard my last words with a look of keen attention and also of bitter pain of mind, now rose and walked to and fro as if meditating. Inwardly I lamented my inability to drive from her face the clouds which I attributed to her increasing distress, as she found herself further and further from her father and her home, bound for still gloomier shades and wilder surroundings.

I asked if she would go in and hear the music of the gypsy, or have him come out and play for her, but she thanked me with a sorrowful attempt at a smile, and returned to her own chamber.

When the sun declined, I ordered Marianne to prepare the best supper that her resources would allow, and then, as it was time that Blaise should have been back from Maury, I went to a little knoll, which gave a view of a part of the abandoned byroad, to look and listen for him. Presently, I heard the sound of a horse's footfalls near the inn, and made haste back to see who rode there. Just as I reached the cleared s.p.a.ce, I saw the rider disappearing around a bend of the road which led to Clochonne.

Though I saw only his back, I recognized him as mademoiselle's boy, Pierre, mounted on one of her horses.

On the bench before the inn sat mademoiselle herself, alone. She gave a start of surprise when I came up to her.

"Mademoiselle," I said, "I have just seen your boy, Pierre, riding towards Clochonne."

"Yes," she replied, looking off towards the darkest part of the forest.

"I--I was alarmed at your absence. I did not know where you had gone; I sent him to look for you."

"Then I would better run after and call him back," I said, taking a step towards the road.

"No, no!" she answered, quickly. "Do not leave me now. He will come back soon of his own accord. I told him to do so if he did not find you. I must ask you to bear with me, monsieur. The solitude, the strangeness of the place, almost appal me. I feel a kind of terror when I do not know that you are near."

"Mademoiselle," I said, sitting beside her on the bench, "I cannot describe that which I shall feel, if I am doomed ever to know that you are not near me. It will be as if the sun had ceased to shine, and the earth had turned barren."

A blush mounted to her cheeks; she dropped her humid eyes; her breast heaved. For an instant she seemed to have forgotten her distresses. Then sorrow resumed its place on her countenance, and she answered, sadly:

"Ah, monsieur, when you shall have truly known me!"

"Have I not known you a whole day?" I asked. "I wonder that life had any relish for me before yesterday. It seems as if I had known you always, though the joy that your presence gives me will always be fresh and novel. Ah, mademoiselle, if you knew what sweetness suddenly filled the world at my first sight of you!"

I took her hand in mine. She made a weak effort to withdraw it; I tightened my hold; she let it remain. Then she turned her blue eyes up to mine with a look of infinite trust and yielding, so that I felt that, rapid as had been my own yielding to the charm of her beauty and her gentleness, she had as speedily acknowledged in me the man by whom her heart might be commanded.

As we sat thus, the gypsy within, who had been for some time aimlessly strumming his instrument, began to sing. The words of his song came to us subdued, but distinct:

"The sparkle of my lady's eyes-- Ah, sight that is the fairest!

The look of love that in them lies-- Ah, thrill that is the rarest!