But only for the merest breath did she permit her soul to stand unveiled before me. Then she drew her hand away and fenced herself again with that invulnerable armor.

“Come, my friend,” she said, and her voice sounded a trifle unsteady in my ears, “we must be going on—we have a long journey still before us.”

I arose like a drunken man. I dared not believe what that glimpse of glory had revealed to me; it seemed too wonderful, too stupendous to be true. I had looked into her soul and seen love there—but was it really there? Or was it merely the reflection of what my own soul disclosed?

I glanced down at her, but she was staring straight before her as she walked steadily forward with a face so cold and impassive that the doubt grew, enwrapped me, darkened to conviction. It was folly to suppose that her eyes had really revealed their secret; it was absurd to believe that such a secret lay behind them. Who was I that I should hope to waken love in the breast of such a woman as this? Pity, perhaps—sympathy, friendship, kindness—anything but the deep, splendid passion I hungered for. She had been moved for the moment, but plainly she already regretted her emotion. Well, I certainly would never remind her of it.

So we went on through the night, taking at every forking of the road the way which led nearest the west, for in the west lay safety. But I knew we had ten leagues and more to cover ere we should reach the Bocage, and the nearer we approached our destination the more closely would danger encompass us. From south and east troops were being massed to crush out by sheer weight of numbers the flame of insurrection which had arisen so suddenly in the very heart of France. From every town within fifty leagues the National Guard had been summoned. From Paris itself levies were hastening—levies of Septembrists, cut-throats, assassins, asking nothing better than permission to murder and pillage, and commanded by a general determined not to fight but to destroy, not to defeat but to exterminate—in a word, not to rest until all Vendée had been made a wilderness, a barren waste. This line of enemies, marching forward in this temper, we were forced to pierce in order to reach our friends.

The moon rose high in the heavens, paused at the zenith, then started on its course down the western sky. I thanked the fortune which gave us her friendly light to guide us, for the road grew ever more wild and rough. In one place indeed it was merely the bed of a torrent little different from that over which we had already toiled so painfully. So we left it, and breaking our way through the hedge which bordered the road, followed along beside it.

Even I was beginning to feel fatigued and I could guess at my companion’s weariness, yet she refused to listen to my suggestion that we stop and rest. But dawn was not far distant and we must find some safe hiding-place for the day. There were no houses in sight, nor had we seen any for some time, but where there was a road, however bad, there must also be people to travel it; and to seek rest, to resign oneself to sleep, save in a safe covert, would be the height of folly.

The country had grown more open and level with only an occasional tree here and there, and was evidently used for pasturage, though I saw no sheep nor cattle; but at last along a ridge at our right I caught sight of a thicket, and toward this we made our way. We found it a dense growth of small saplings and underbrush and broke our way into it with difficulty; but the event repaid the labor, for at last we came to a little glade not over a rod across and carpeted with grass.

“Here is our resting-place,” I said, “and our home for another day.”

My companion sank down with a sigh of utter fatigue.

“I am very tired,” she murmured, and drew off the shoes which I had slipped over her own.

“You are to sleep until you are quite rested,” I added. “We will remain here until evening. Then, after darkness falls and before the moon is up, we shall try to pierce the lines of the Republicans, which cannot be far away. For that you must be fresh, for we may need to be fleet.”

“But you?” she broke in quickly. “You are going to sleep too?”

“Undoubtedly,” I answered. “Only first I wish to assure myself that there is no house too near us. Good-night, mademoiselle.”

“Good-night, my friend,” she said, looking up at me with a little tremulous smile full of sorrow and weariness.

I stood a moment gazing down at her, longing to gather her in my arms, as one would a child, and caress and comfort her and hold her so until she fell asleep. But I managed to crush the longing back and turn away to the task which I had set myself.

The thicket crowned a low ridge which stretched between two gentle valleys. That we had left was, as I have said, innocent of human habitation. In the one to the north I fancied I could discern a group of houses, but they were so far away that we need apprehend no danger from them. To the westward, along the ridge, the thicket stretched as far as I could see.

Assured that our hiding-place was as safe as could be hoped for, I made my way back to it and walked softly to the dark figure on the grass. She was lying on her side, her head pillowed on her arm, and as I bent above her to make sure that she was protected from the chill of the night, I knew by her regular breathing that she slept. That sleep, so peaceful and trusting, consecrated the little glade—hallowed it, transformed it into such a temple that I dared lay me down only upon its margin, as though it were a holy place.

Long I lay staring up at the heavens, wondering if I might indeed hope to win this superb creature; weaving a golden future which we trod arm in arm. To possess her, to have her always at my side, the mistress of my home, the mother of my children—the thought shook me with a delicious trembling. But at last cold reason snatched me down from this empyrean height. I told myself I was a fool, and so turned on my side, closed my eyes resolutely, and in the end sank to sleep.

I awoke with the full sun staring me in the face and sat up with a start to find my companion smiling at me across the little amphitheatre.

“Good-morning, monsieur,” she said.

“Good-morning,” I responded, and rose and went toward her.

In some magical way she had removed the stains of travel; to my eyes she seemed to have stepped but this moment from her bath. A sudden loathing of my own foul and hideous clothing came over me. How, in that guise, could she regard me with anything but disgust?

“Mademoiselle,” I said, “I am ashamed to stand here before you in this clear light, for you are sweet and fresh as the morning, while I——”

“Choose the harder part,” she interrupted, “in order to serve me better.”

“But to be hideous——”

“Oh, I do not look at the clothes,” she said; “and as for the face——”

“Well,” I prompted, “as for the face——”

She stole a glance at me.

“As for the face,” she continued, “you will remember that I bathed it last night, monsieur, while I was attempting to revive you, and so it is nearly as attractive as nature made it.”

“A poor consolation,” I retorted.

“Well,” she said, looking at it critically, “I confess I have seen handsomer ones.”

“Yes?” I encouraged, as she hesitated.

“But never one I liked better,” she added, a heavenly shyness in her eyes.

“Mademoiselle,” I said, suddenly taking my courage in my hands, “last night while I was unconscious I dreamed such a beautiful dream. I wonder if it was true?”

She glanced again at me hastily and her cheeks were very red.

“Dreams are never true,” she said decidedly. “They go by contraries. You will have to bedaub your face a little before you venture forth again.”

“But the dream,” I insisted, refusing to be diverted. “Shall I tell you what it was?”

“I have never been interested in dreams,” she responded calmly, and brushed from her skirt an imperceptible speck of dust.

“But perhaps this one——”

“Not even this one, I am sure. How long are we to remain here, M. de Tavernay?”

I surrendered in despair before the coldness of her glance.

“You are to remain till evening,” I replied. “But I must go at once. My first task will be to get some food. Hunger is an enemy which always returns to the attack no matter how often it is overcome.”

“And so is a foe to be respected and appeased rather than despised,” she added smiling; “I came across some such observation in a book I was reading not long ago. It had a most amusing old man in it called The Partridge,[A] who was always hungry.”

“I can sympathize with him,” I said. “My own stomach feels particularly empty at this moment; I must find something to fill it—and yours, too.”

“But I fear for you,” she protested. “I wish you would not go. I am sure we can get through the day without starving. I should prefer to try, rather than that you should again run such risks as you did last night.”

“Those risks were purely the result of my own folly,” I pointed out. “I shall not be such a fool a second time. There is a village down yonder and I shall breakfast at the inn like any other traveller. It was my haste last night which aroused suspicion. Besides,” I added, “I doubt if any one could follow even me by daylight without my perceiving it. You may have to wait an hour——”

“It will not be hunger which distresses me,” she interrupted earnestly, “but fear for your safety. Let us do without the food.”

“It is true we shouldn’t starve,” I admitted, “but for to-night we must be strong, ready for anything. A fast is bad preparation for the kind of work we have before us. Besides, I must find where we are, how the Republican forces are disposed, and the nearest point at which we may find friends. We must guard against the possibility of blundering haphazard into some trap and so failing at the last moment.”

“You are right, of course,” she agreed instantly, though her face was very pale. “I will wait for you here, and pray for you.”

She gave me her hand and I bent and kissed it with trembling lips.

“There will be no danger,” I assured her again, waved my hand to her and plunged into the thicket.

I made my way through it for some distance before venturing into the open; then, under shelter of a hedge, I hastened down the slope, gained the road and turned my face toward the village. Ten minutes brought me to it—a straggle of sordid houses along each side the road teeming with dirty children and with a slatternly woman leaning in every doorway. There was an inn at either end to catch the traveller going east or west and I entered the first I came to and asked for breakfast. It was served by a pert and not uncomely maid,—bacon, eggs and creamy biscuits,—and I fell to it with an appetite tempered only by the thought that I must eat alone. There was at the time no other guest, and as the maid seemed very willing to talk, I determined to turn her to account.

“These are delicious biscuits,” I began. “I have tasted none so good since I started on this journey.”

She dropped me a curtesy, flushing with pleasure.

“Have you come a long journey, monsieur?” she asked.

“What!” I cried. “You still say ‘monsieur’! Is it a royalist then with whom I have to deal,—a ci-devant,—an aristocrat?”

“A royalist?” she repeated, visibly horrified. “Oh, no; but the habit is an old one.”

“Yes,” I admitted, “old habits are hard to break; even my tongue slips sometimes.”

“Besides,” she added, looking at me steadily, “there was about you something which made me hesitate to call you citizen.”

It was my time to flush. I found myself unable to meet her clear eyes and covered my confusion clumsily by a laugh which even I perceived did not ring true. If my disguise was so easily penetrated it was time I was getting back to my hiding-place.

“Nonsense!” I retorted. “It is proper to say citizen to any one. And, by the way, citizen, what is the name of this village?”

“What, you don’t know!” she cried.

“Is that wonderful? It hardly seemed to me a second Paris.”

“Yet you come to it!”

“I pass through it because it happens to be in my way; I stop for breakfast—I would wish to stop longer,” I added with an expressive glance, “but the Nation needs me.”

“Needs you?”

“As she needs every man she can get to stamp out those cursed rebels in Vendée.”

“Oh, so it is there you go?” she said, her face clearing. “Yes—you are right. My father went yesterday to join the Blues; our guard marched last night. There is scarcely a man left in the village.”

“And now perhaps you will tell me its name,” I suggested.

“It is called Dairon.”

“And where is the nearest Republican force?”

“There is a small one at Airvault and another at Moncontour; but if it is fighting you are looking for, citizen, you will press on to Thouars.”

“How far is Thouars?”

“Four leagues, and this road will lead you there.”

“Then it is this road I will take. So there is to be fighting at Thouars?”

“Our officers dined here last night,” she explained, “and I heard them talking. It seems that the brigands are gathering at Coulonges and expect to take Thouars. Bah! The Blues will fall upon them, surround them, exterminate them! For do you know what it is that they are planning, those scoundrels? They are planning to hold a place where that ogre of a Pitt may land his troops upon the sacred soil of France!”

Her eyes were blazing. I sprang to my feet.

“Then I must be off!” I cried. “I can’t afford to miss that fun. But first, citizen, can you put me up a lunch for the road—a big one, for I have the devil of an appetite. Ransack your larder—I can pay for it;” and I laid a golden louis on the table. “In the vicinity of an army there is never anything to eat. I shall no doubt meet plenty of poor fellows with nothing in their bellies, and two or three bottles of wine would not be amiss.”

“Just so,” she nodded, and flew to the kitchen, where I heard her and another woman talking vigorously together to the accompaniment of a clatter of knives and dishes.

I walked to the door and looked down the village street. It was still deserted, save for the women and children. Evidently the men had all been caught in the dragnet of the Blues, or had hurried into hiding for fear they would be drafted to the front. How these poor creatures, left here to their own resources, managed to exist I could not imagine.

“Well, citizen,” asked a voice, “how is this?”

I turned to find the maid smiling up at me and in her hand a hamper filled to the brim and covered with a cloth through which the necks of three bottles protruded.

“Excellent!” I cried as I took it. “That will make me welcome, at any rate. A thousand thanks, my dear.”

“There is one more thing I can do for you,” she said. “Your disguise is a poor one, citizen.”

“Disguise!” I echoed, my heart in my throat.

“Because the face does not match the clothes,” she went on imperturbably. “Any fool could see that these rags do not belong to you. Sit here a moment.”

I sat down obediently, not daring to disobey. Whereupon she produced a greasy rag and rubbed it over my face, retiring a step or two from time to time to admire the effect, and then returning to add another touch, much in the manner of an artist engaged upon a masterpiece. At last she was satisfied.

“There,” she said, “I defy any one to detect you now. And remember, as long as you wear those rags you are not to wash face or hands. Your business is none of mine, but you are too pretty a fellow to be permitted to run your head into a noose.”

“Thank you, my dear!” I said again, and rose and took up my hamper.

She came to me and stood on tiptoe.

“A salute for the Nation, citizen,” she said, and kissed me on either cheek. “If you return this way you are to stop here and inquire for Ninette. She will be glad to see you. Adieu—and may the good God have you in His keeping.”

I turned westward along the street, unheeding the curious glances cast at me, with a conscience not wholly at peace. I had secured these generous provisions under false pretenses. I had not merited those pure kisses.