CHAPTER XXII.
THE PONIARD AGAIN.
Not until a turn of the road hid me from the village and I was satisfied that I was unobserved did I turn aside and, again sheltering myself behind a friendly hedge, gain the thicket which stretched along the ridge. Then plunging into its cover I hastened back with what speed I could toward the spot where I had left my comrade, uneasily conscious that I had lingered at the inn longer than I had thought to do, for the sun told me that noon had come and gone.
So it was with an anxiety which increased at every step that I broke my way through the underbrush, unheeding the briers which clutched at my clothes and stung hands and face—an anxiety which leaped to mortal anguish as I came out suddenly into the little amphitheatre where I had left her and saw at a glance that it was empty.
I set down the hamper with a groan of agony and wiped the cold sweat from my forehead. Fool!—idiot that I was to leave her unguarded for so long a time! Some one had blundered into our retreat, had discovered her, had taken her prisoner. This thicket doubtless harbored many scoundrels seeking to evade the draft. Perhaps even at this moment——
“Good-day, M. de Tavernay,” called a gay voice; and I turned my head mechanically, to see her emerging from the thicket, her face alight. “So you have returned!”
“Thank God!” I cried. “Thank God! You are safe, then!”
“Safe?” she repeated, eyeing me a little curiously. “But certainly! What did you imagine?”
“I feared you had been captured,” I answered hoarsely. “Carried away! No matter, since you are safe.”
“I heard some one approaching,” she explained, still eyeing me, “and decided I would better conceal myself until I was certain it was you. That was wise, wasn’t it?”
“Wise? Oh, yes! But I thought I had lost you! I had stayed away so long.”
“And in truth,” she went on, laughing again, “I am not yet quite certain that it is really you. What a villainous countenance!”
“Yes,” I said, flushing. “The—the girl at the inn fixed it for me.”
“So!” she cried. “It was a girl that kept you—and pretty, I’ll be bound! To think that I have been worrying about you!”
“You must be nearly starved,” I said, anxious to change the subject.
“I confess a lively pleasure at the sight of that hamper. May I explore it?”
“At once,” I urged, and sat down a little weakly, for I was not yet wholly recovered from the swift reaction from that agony of fear.
She spread upon the grass the cloth with which the hamper was covered and uttered little cries of delight as she drew forth its contents and arranged them before her.
“Why, you are a wizard, M. de Tavernay!” she cried when the hamper was empty. “Here is a feast fit for a king. That girl must have fallen desperately in love with you! A real passion! Poor creature!”
“I posed as a Republican,” I explained. “She is a good patriot and anxious to serve the Nation.”
“Especially when it is personified by a handsome and gallant fellow,” she amended. “No matter; I am not jealous. Indeed I have no right to be. But I wonder what the betrothed would say? Rest easy; she shall never know, I promise you that. And now, if you will draw the corks, we are ready to begin.”
“I am glad to see you in such spirits,” I remarked with irony as I got out my knife.
“It is so much pleasanter than being dull and gloomy, is it not?” she agreed.
“You remind me of a red Indian,” I continued as I drew the corks, “dancing around his captive and burying a barb in his flesh from time to time just to see his anguish.”
“Well,” she retorted, “I am going to treat you as no red Indian ever treated a captive. Sit down and share the feast.”
“But I have already eaten,” I protested. Nevertheless I sat down in the place she indicated. “Besides, my fright when I found you gone killed any return of appetite.”
“Were you really frightened?”
“Horribly!”
“I know what you need—a draught of wine.”
“If you will drink first,” I agreed.
She raised a bottle to her lips, then handed it to me.
“You were right,” I said, as I put it down. “That was really what I needed. My heart is bounding again, though perhaps not wholly from the wine.”
She smiled as she looked at me.
“Whatever the cause, I am glad to see you more like yourself. And now you will eat—I detest eating alone.”
“I will try,” I said; but I confess I found eating a difficult task with that vision across from me.
“Did you learn where we are?” she asked at last.
“The village is called Dairon. We are about four leagues from Thouars, where the Blues are in force. We must get past them somehow to Coulonges, a league beyond, where we shall find friends.”
“And we must wait until to-night to go forward?”
“Till twilight, at least.”
“We should get to Coulonges to-night, then?”
“Yes,” I answered with a sinking heart at the thought that my dream was to end so soon. “If all goes well we should reach Coulonges by midnight.”
“You actually say that in a tone of despondency!”
“And do you see in it nothing to regret, mademoiselle?”
“To regret? Assuredly not! Shall you regret being in safety?”
“Danger is not the worst thing that can befall a man,” I said, “more especially——”
“Well?” she questioned tantalizingly as I hesitated.
I leaned across the cloth and caught her hands and held them prisoner.
“More especially when it is shared by the woman he loves,” I continued, throwing discretion to the winds. “Ah, then he forgets the danger, mademoiselle! He remembers only that she is beside him,—that he may look into her eyes as I look into yours,—that he may kiss her hands as I kiss these dear ones. And when he knows that to restore her to her friends is to sever himself from her, he may well despond as he sees the hour approach.”
She sat looking at me, the color coming and going in her cheeks, her lips parted, her eyes a little misty. And she made no effort to take her hands away. Ah, what a woman she was! The beauty of her!—the whiteness, the delicacy, the slim grace!—and with it all, a woman’s passionate heart, a woman’s power of loving and desire of being loved! It was there, I knew, waiting to be awakened, needing only the touch of a certain hand, the sound of a certain voice.
“You really love me!” she murmured. “You really love me!”
“Oh, my dearest!” I cried. “Can you doubt it? Looking into my eyes, can you doubt it? And last night, looking into yours, I fancied that you swept aside the veil for a moment, and that I saw into your heart, your soul, and read a secret there which made me madly happy! Did I read aright?”
“Not to value your devotion would be indeed ungrateful, monsieur,” she answered in a whisper——
“It is not gratitude that I ask,” I broke in. “It was not gratitude that I saw! Did I read aright?”
“Suppose I say yes,” she said; “what is it you propose?”
“I propose to take you and keep you,” I answered madly, drawing her toward me, my blood on fire. “You do love me!—come, confess it! Look into my eyes and tell me! I defy the whole world to take you from me now!”
She swayed toward me for an instant, her lips parted, her eyes swimming in a veil of tears. I had won! I had won! Then she drew her hands away and sat erect, a convulsive shiver running through her.
“And your honor,” she asked, her face suddenly white—“what of it? The word you have given—what of it? The vow you have taken—what of it? And if I did love you—do you not see that it is the man of honor that I love? Do you think I could keep on loving a dishonored man—even though that dishonor were incurred for me? Do you think I could find any place in my heart for a man unfaithful to such a vow as you have taken? No, no!—you cannot believe that!—you cannot so mistake me! I have built a temple for you in my heart—do not tell me that you are unworthy to dwell there!”
I was struck dumb before her. I could find no word of answer. She was right—a hundred times right. And by the trembling which shook her I saw that it was not I alone who suffered.
“Forgive me!” I groaned. “Forgive me!” and I flung myself forward at her feet.
But her arms were about me, and she raised me up and kissed me on the forehead, and her eyes were shining, and her face was very pale.
“Be brave!” she whispered brokenly. “Be brave, my friend! The future will be brighter than you think. Oh, you are worthy to occupy that temple! Oh, I must——”
A sudden rattle of arms and tramp of feet rose to us from the valley.
“What is that?” she asked with bated breath.
I sprang to my feet, went cautiously to the edge of the thicket and looked down. A regiment was marching westward along the road by which we had come—a regiment dusty and travel-stained, with tri-colored cockades in their hats and tri-colored scarfs about their necks. I watched them until they disappeared around a turn of the road. Then I rejoined my comrade.
“It was a regiment of Blues,” I said; “that is bad. I had hoped to take that road. Now we must take the other; but we must keep to the cover of this thicket until we are past the village. We would better be starting now while there is light; then at dusk we can descend to the road and hasten on to Coulonges.”
She was replacing the food in the hamper before I had finished.
“We may need it,” she said; “you shall not risk yourself again.”
She was entirely self-controlled and turned to me the old, clear, friendly gaze; the emotion which had shaken her a moment before had been conquered and swept aside. What was it she had been about to say? Should I ever know? Should I ever again get past the barrier of her reserve?
I watched her as she slipped my shoes over her own again and fastened them. Then I took up the hamper and started. At the edge of the little glade she paused and threw a kiss back to it.
“Good-by,” she called. “Good-by. You also have kept us safely. I shall always remember!”
I dared not look back. I felt that I was forever leaving a spot more dear and sacred than home itself. So I strode blindly on, hurling myself savagely at the underbrush, until the very fury of my exertions served to exhaust the fire which raged within.
“Am I going too fast?” I asked, pausing and turning to her, for her footsteps told me that she was close at my heels.
“No,” she said, “but you must be tiring yourself terribly, and to little useful purpose.”
“It was the brute fighting itself out,” I explained; “exhausting itself by bruising and trampling down those poor little saplings.”
“And is it quite exhausted?”
“I trust so. Do you never have an impulse to destroy things—to rend them apart and shatter them to bits?”
“Sometimes,” she admitted, laughing. “It’s like a thunderstorm, isn’t it—all fire and fury while it lasts, but leaving one cleansed and purified. Oh, I am far from perfect,” she added, laughing again as she caught my glance, “as you would have seen for yourself long ere this had you been of an observing turn. Is this as far as we go through this thicket?”
“No,” I answered, checking the words which rose to my lips; and I set off again, nor paused until the village had sunk from sight behind us. “Now we can rest,” I said, and sat down at the edge of the bushes.
She sat beside me and leaned her chin upon her hand as she gazed down into the valley. The sun was sinking to the west and the road seemed the merest yellow ribbon between its green hedges. Far ahead I could see that the country again became more broken, and a low range of purple hills closed in the horizon.
As we sat there silent, a cloud of dust appeared far down the road, and we moved deeper into the cover of the bushes, fearing that it was another regiment approaching. But it was only a flock of sheep, driven by three shepherds.
“Food for the enemy,” I remarked. “That explains why there are no longer any flocks in these pastures. The Republic has swallowed them, as it has swallowed so many other things.”
We watched them until they passed from sight on the horizon behind a cloud of dust which rose and rose until it covered the sun’s face.
“Yonder behind that cloud lies Thouars,” I said.
“And a league beyond is Coulonges—and our friends,” she added.
“Always thinking of that!” I rejoined bitterly.
“Yes—of safety and home. How I shall delight to be there again!”
“Home! And I do not even know where that is! Why is it, mademoiselle, that you have told me nothing of yourself? Do you mistrust me?”
“Mistrust you?” she repeated. “What an absurd question! But there is so little to tell.”
“And you refuse to tell me even that? I know nothing of you except your name. How am I to find you again, if fate is indeed kind to me? Where am I to look for you?”
“A perfect lover would have trusted his heart to lead him,” she retorted. “But since you do not, you may as well know that the Château de Chambray is two leagues south of Poitiers.”
“Then,” I said, “I shall not have far to go if—if—pray heaven it may be my fortune to seek you there.”
I could see by her sparkling eyes that the spirit of mischief had sprung to life again.
“We shall be very glad to welcome you, my father and I,” she said, without permitting me to finish. “Perhaps we can even persuade you to bring your betrothed with you. Why not spend your honeymoon at Chambray, monsieur?”
“I should like to spend it there,” I retorted, “but with another woman.”
It was her turn to redden, and she did so in good earnest.
“Do you think fortune will favor me that far?” I persisted.
Then she armed herself and struck me a savage blow.
“No,” she answered quickly; “I think fortune will hold you to your promise and that you will soon forget to rail at her. Your heart is exceedingly inflammable and will burn none the less ardently, whether it be I or your betrothed who applies the spark.”
“If that is your opinion,” I returned bitterly, “there is nothing more to be said.”
“And I am quite certain,” she added, smiling strangely, “that you will one day accept that invitation. My father will insist upon it.”
“Let him!” I retorted. “Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Nor I. This hamper, then, we will leave here, as we shall reach Coulanges to-night. It is time we were setting off.”
She arose without a word and followed me down the slope. Only, when at last I glanced back, did I perceive that she was bearing the hamper.
“Why are you bringing that?” I demanded, wheeling sharp around.
“Food is not plentiful enough in France to be wasted in that way,” she answered evenly.
“What do you propose to do with it?”
“I propose to leave it at the door of the first hut we reach;” and she made a motion as though to pass me.
I seized the hamper roughly and strode on through the dusk, marvelling at the inconsistencies of a heart which could be at the same time so cruel and so tender.