At the first she had ridden with the others, with a fearlessness which many a man might have envied. But when they had galloped some miles almost upon the outskirts of the forest, it appeared to de Guyon that she was drawing away from the chase, and seeking to plunge into the darker places of the woods. The note of the horns died down in the distance; the voice of the hounds were faint echoes in the hollows; and still she rode on through groves of close set pines and tangles of bramble; over swards carpeted with violets and meadows of soft sand; by dark pools and bubbling brooks. When at last she drew rein it was at a thicket's edge in a grass glade odorous with the perfume of sweet flowers; there one of her own serving men came out to greet her.
"Our ride is over, Monsieur de Guyon," said she, jumping lightly from her horse, "and here we should find our breakfast. Did you think that I was going to lose you in the forest?"
She was blushing deeply; but it was with the blush of a young girl's health. It seemed to de Guyon that she had left at the château that stately dignity of speech and bearing which he had remarked at their first meeting. Nor did he know in which mood he found her the more charming. While he had thought overnight that there was no woman at Versailles to be compared to her as the graceful mistress of a household, he now said that this girlish freedom was unsurpassable in its charm and attractiveness. And her riding-dress showed her pretty figure to exceeding advantage; the quaint round hat in which she had gone to the hunt gave piquancy to the freshness of her young face. He said to himself that the wonder was, not that the king now desired to see her, but that she had not been lured to the palace long ago. Yet he trembled at the thought of her being there; found himself in some way posing mentally as her protector from ills which it seemed a crime to think upon.
The nook in which they were to breakfast was the one she called her bower. In part it was of nature's making; in part the work of her own gardeners, who had trained honey-suckle about the little wooden pavilion and had almost smothered it in roses. Here, in the depths of the glen, a clear pool of water caught the sun's rays streaming through a canopy of boughs and branches, and showed gold and silver fish basking in the warmth, or feeding on the ripe green weeds which flourished on the pebbly bed. A little balcony, pleasantly shaded by a roof of flowering creeper, was built over the pond, and the breakfast to which de Guyon had been invited was spread out upon a little wooden table on this balcony. He saw at once that only two chairs were set; and for a moment he had hopes of this discovery. Was it possible that Gabrielle de Vernet was going to make love to him?
This pleasing speculation was soon at rest. Directly the girl began to speak to him he knew that no such thoughts were in her mind. The pretty speech he had framed died away upon his lips. He began mentally to pay her a new homage. She was so different from any woman he had known. He felt like a child before a mistress—and yet he was drawn towards her as towards one whom all the world must love. He said that it would be heaven itself to hold her in his arms; then remembered that he had come to her that he might carry her to the shame of the Court. It was a pitiful errand, indeed; it seemed the more pitiful when she began to speak of it fearlessly.
"You are wondering why I left the hunt and brought you to my bower?" she asked while she heaped her plate with fresh fruit, and the servant filled their glasses with a pleasing yellow wine.
"Parbleu! since your bower is so pleasant a place, why should I ask any such question?"
"It would be very natural if you had done so," said she, unmindful of the compliment, "and I don't know that I am not treating you very ill. But I promised myself that I would talk of your message this morning—and my curiosity is your punishment. I have now read my cousin Claude's letter, in which he conveys to me the king's earnest wish that I should present myself at Versailles. You, I understand, are sent to emphasise that wish."
It was a very direct question, and he saw no way by which he might evade it.
"Certainly, that is so," he stammered at last. "His Majesty's wish is to be read as a command in a matter like this. I will tell you frankly that I am sent to escort you to the palace, where the king would be glad to consult you upon many subjects connected with—with——"
"With what, Monsieur de Guyon? Really you provoke my curiosity again."
He felt that she was laughing at him, and in his embarrassment his tongue failed him.
"Oh," she said, continuing in a spirit of raillery, "you are a very bad ambassador, Monsieur de Guyon. I shall really have to help you myself."
"I am afraid that you speak truth. I am a soldier, madame, and my principal occupation is to obey."
"Even when obedience concerns a woman's honour?"
He had no answer to give to her—his mind was bent like a whip in her hands.
"Yes, my friend," she continued, sparing him in nothing, "I can scarce think that you have lived under the king's roof for five years without knowing well what his Majesty's gracious wish implies. You ask me if I will go to the palace? I answer you by another question—does the dove go willingly to the cage, the deer to the stable? Does the man who has breathed God's air upon the hills sleep at his ease in a cellar? Here, with the children who love me, with the forest for my home, with the worship of God in Jesus Christ for my occupation, I find life rich in treasure, as she is always rich to those that deal well with her. Think you that I would surrender these my pleasures at the nod of any king—even at the nod of the well-beloved? Oh, Monsieur de Guyon, you know that I would not."
She had spoken quickly, the effort suffusing her face with a glow of pink; her eyes bright with earnestness of purpose. De Guyon, accustomed to the restraint of the women of the Court, to the practice of verbal insincerities, listened to her with amazement. Here was a woman who believed in Christ—yet a woman with warm blood in her veins; no recluse of the cell, but a living, breathing entity, to listen to whom was to hear a voice as from another world. Her very frankness gave him courage; all the fine phrases with which he had hoped to ensnare had long passed from his mind. He answered her in plain words as she wished.
"Madame," said he, "it is ill to put upon the servant the designs of the master. I am the servant of King Louis. If he says go, I go; or stay, and I stay. How then would you make me your adviser? Indeed, this visit is none of my planning. I knew not of it until the hour in which I was bidden to set out. It is only when you speak to me like this that I am able to answer frankly. As a soldier, I say to you, come with me to the palace; as a friend, I urge you to remain at your château as long as the king will permit."
"As long as the king will permit! Then he adds threats to the expression of his pleasure?"
"His Majesty does not love to be contradicted, madame."
"Nay, but you shall contradict him for me; you shall return this very night with my message. If I am to go to Versailles——"
"To Fontainebleau. His Majesty will be there on Sunday next to receive you."
"Oh, his Majesty is very thoughtful. See, my dear Monsieur de Guyon, how he would shield me from prying eyes."
"He judged that the journey would be less fatiguing; you are but five leagues from the palace of Francis, are you not?"
"Six exactly, mon ami—yet far enough to prove a heavy burden when his Majesty comes to carry me."
"To carry you!"
"I will go no other way. He shall take me in his own arms. Think you, Monsieur de Guyon, that you could carry me six leagues? Certainly you could not."
De Guyon thought that he would be happy if the attempt were permitted to him; but he said nothing of this, harking back rather to the message he must bear.
"The king comes to the château on Saturday about sundown," said he; "I am to meet him there with news of you."
"Then that you have. You will tell him that Gabrielle de Vernet will come to the Court when he shall be pleased to carry her there."
He stared at her now with blank astonishment.
"It would cost me my command," he stammered.
She looked at him with