But the young Countess had borne to the limit of her powers. With an incoherent word she rose to her feet, and walked hurriedly away. The thought of what was and of what might have been, the thought of the lover who still--though he no longer seemed, even to her, the perfect hero--held a place in her heart, filled her breast to overflowing. She longed for some spot where she could weep unseen; where the sunshine and the blue sky would not mock her grief; and seeing in front of her a little clump of alders, which grew beside the stream, in a bend that in winter was marshy, she hastened towards it.
Madame St. Lo saw her figure blend with the shadow of the trees.
"Quite _a la_ Ronsard, I give my word!" she murmured. "And now she is out of sight! _La, la_! I could play at the game myself, and carve sweet sorrow on the barks of trees, if it were not so lonesome! And if I had a man!"
And gazing pensively at the stream and the willows, my lady tried to work herself into a proper frame of mind; now murmuring the name of one gallant, and now, finding it unsuited, the name of another. But the soft inflection would break into a giggle, and finally into a yawn; and, tired of the attempt, she began to pluck grass and throw it from her. By-and-by she discovered that Madame Carlat and the women, who had their place a little apart, had disappeared; and affrighted by the solitude and silence--for neither of which she was made--she sprang up and stared about her, hoping to discern them. Right and left, however, the sweep of hillside curved upward to the skyline, lonely and untenanted; behind her the castled rock frowned down on the rugged gorge and filled it with dispiriting shadow. Madame St. Lo stamped her foot on the turf.
"The little fool!" she murmured pettishly. "Does she think that I am to be murdered that she may fatten on sighs? Oh, come up, Madame, you must be dragged out of this!" And she started briskly towards the alders, intent on gaining company as quickly as possible.
She had gone about fifty yards, and had as many more to traverse when she halted. A man, bent double, was moving stealthily along the farther side of the brook, a little in front of her. Now she saw him, now she lost him; now she caught a glimpse of him again, through a screen of willow branches. He moved with the utmost caution, as a man moves who is pursued or in danger; and for a moment she deemed him a peasant whom the bathers had disturbed and who was bent on escaping. But when he came opposite to the alder-bed she saw that that was his point, for he crouched down, sheltered by a willow, and gazed eagerly among the trees, always with his back to her; and then he waved his hand to some one in the wood.
Madame St. Lo drew in her breath. As if he had heard the sound--which was impossible--the man dropped down where he stood, crawled a yard or two on his face, and disappeared.
Madame stared a moment, expecting to see him or hear him. Then, as nothing happened, she screamed. She was a woman of quick impulses, essentially feminine; and she screamed three or four times, standing where she was, her eyes on the edge of the wood. "If that does not bring her out, nothing will!" she thought.
It brought her. An instant, and the Countess appeared, and hurried in dismay to her side.
"What is it?" the younger woman asked, glancing over her shoulder; for all the valley, all the hills were peaceful, and behind Madame St. Lo--but the lady had not discovered it--the servants who had returned were laying the meal. "What is it?" she repeated anxiously.
"Who was it?" Madame St. Lo asked curtly. She was quite calm now.
"Who was--who?"
"The man in the wood?"
The Countess stared a moment, then laughed. "Only the old soldier they call Badelon, gathering simples. Did you think that he would harm me?"
"It was not old Badelon whom I saw!" Madame St. Lo retorted. "It was a younger man, who crept along the other side of the brook, keeping under cover. When I first saw him he was there," she continued, pointing to the place. "And he crept on and on until he came opposite to you. Then he waved his hand."
"To me?"
Madame nodded.
"But if you saw him, who was he?" the Countess asked.
"I did not see his face," Madame St. Lo answered. "But he waved to you. That I saw."
The Countess had a thought which slowly flooded her face with crimson. Madame St. Lo saw the change, saw the tender light which on a sudden softened the other's eyes; and the same thought occurred to her. And having a mind to punish her companion for her reticence--for she did not doubt that the girl knew more than she acknowledged--she proposed that they should return and find Badelon, and learn if he had seen the man.
"Why?" Madame Tavannes asked. And she stood stubbornly, her head high. "Why should we?"
"To clear it up," the elder woman answered mischievously. "But perhaps, it were better to tell your husband and let his men search the coppice."
The colour left the Countess's face as quickly as it had come. For a moment she was tongue-tied. Then--
"Have we not had enough of seeking and being sought?" she cried, more bitterly than befitted the occasion. "Why should we hunt him? I am not timid, and he did me no harm. I beg, Madame, that you will do me the favour of being silent on the matter."
"Oh, if you insist? But what a pother--"
"I did not see him, and he did not see me," Madame de Tavannes answered vehemently. "I fail, therefore, to understand why we should harass him, whoever he be. Besides, M. de Tavannes is waiting for us."
"And M. de Tignonville--is following us!" Madame St. Lo muttered under her breath. And she made a face at the other's back.
She was silent, however. They returned to the others and nothing of import, it would seem, had happened. The soft summer air played on the meal laid under the willows as it had played on the meal of yesterday laid under the chestnut-trees. The horses grazed within sight, moving now and again, with a jingle of trappings or a jealous neigh: the women's chatter vied with the unceasing sound of the mill-stream. After dinner, Madame St. Lo touched the lute, and Badelon--Badelon who had seen the sack of the Colonna's Palace, and been served by cardinals on the knee--fed a water-rat, which had its home in one of the willow-stumps, with carrot-parings. One by one the men laid themselves to sleep with their faces on their arms; and to the eyes all was as all had been yesterday in this camp of armed men living peacefully.
But not to the Countess! She had accepted her life, she had resigned herself, she had marvelled that it was no worse. After the horrors of Paris the calm of the last two days had fallen on her as balm on a wound. Worn out in body and mind, she had rested, and only rested; without thought, almost without emotion, save for the feeling, half fear, half curiosity, which stirred her in regard to the strange man, her husband. Who on his side left her alone.
But the last hour had wrought a change. Her eyes were grown restless, her colour came and went. The past stirred in its shallow--ah, so shallow--grave; and dead hopes and dead forebodings, strive as she might, thrust out hands to plague and torment her. If the man who sought to speak with her by stealth, who dogged her footsteps and hung on the skirts of her party, were Tignonville--her lover, who at his own request had been escorted to the Arsenal before their departure from Paris--then her plight was a sorry one. For what woman, wedded as she had been wedded, could think otherwise than indulgently of his persistence? And yet, lover and husband! What peril, what shame the words had often spelled! At the thought only she trembled and her colour ebbed. She saw, as one who stands on the brink of a precipice, the depth which yawned before her. She asked herself, shivering, if she would ever sink to _that_.
All the loyalty of a strong nature, all the virtue of a good woman, revolted against the thought. True, her husband--husband she must call him--had not deserved her love; but his bizarre magnanimity, the gloomy, disdainful kindness with which he had crowned possession, even the unity