"You thought you deceived me yesterday," she continued, lowering her tone, but with no lessening of the passion and contempt which curled her lip and gave fulness to her voice. "You plotter! You surface trickster! You thought it an easy task to delude a woman--you find yourself deluded. God give you shame that you may suffer!" she continued mercilessly. "You talked of Clon, but Clon beside you is the most honourable of men!"
"Madame," I said hoarsely--and I know my face was grey as ashes--"let us understand one another."
"God forbid!" she cried, on the instant. "I would not soil myself!"
"Fie! Madame," I said, trembling. "But then, you are a woman. That should cost a man his life!"
She laughed bitterly.
"You say well," she retorted. "I am not a man. Neither am I Madame. Madame de Cocheforêt has spent this afternoon--thanks to your absence and your imbecility--with her husband. Yes, I hope that hurts you!" she went on, savagely snapping her little white teeth together. "To spy and do vile work, and do it ill, Monsieur Mouchard--Monsieur de Mouchard, I should say--I congratulate you!"
"You are not Madame de Cocheforêt!" I cried, stunned--even in the midst of my shame and rage--by this blow.
"No, Monsieur!" she answered grimly. "I am not! And permit me to point out--for we do not all lie easily--that I never said I was. You deceived yourself so skilfully that we had no need to trick you."
"Mademoiselle, then?" I muttered.
"Is Madame!" she cried. "Yes, and I am Mademoiselle de Cocheforêt. And in that character, and in all others, I beg from this moment to close our acquaintance, Sir. When we meet again--if we ever do meet--which God forbid!" she cried, her eyes sparkling, "do not presume to speak to me, or I will have you flogged by the grooms. And do not stain our roof by sleeping under it again. You may lie to-night in the inn. It shall not be said that Cocheforêt," she continued proudly, "returned even treachery with inhospitality; and I will give orders to that end. To-morrow begone back to your master, like the whipped cur you are! Spy and coward!"
With the last fierce words she moved away. I would have said something, I could almost have found it in my heart to stop her and make her hear. Nay, I had dreadful thoughts; for I was the stronger, and I might have done with her as I pleased. But she swept by me so fearlessly--as I might pass some loathsome cripple in the road--that I stood turned to stone. Without looking at me--without turning her head to see whether I followed or remained, or what I did--she went steadily down the track until the trees and the shadow and the growing darkness hid her grey figure from me; and I found myself alone.
CHAPTER V.
REVENGE.
And full of black rage! Had she only reproached me, or, turning on me in the hour of my victory, said all she had now said in the moment of her own, I could have borne it. She might have shamed me then, and I might have taken the shame to myself, and forgiven her. But, as it was, I stood there in the gathering dusk, between the darkening hedges, baffled, tricked, defeated! And by a woman! She had pitted her wits against mine, her woman's will against my experience, and she had come off the victor. And then she had reviled me. As I took it all in, and began to comprehend, also, the more remote results, and how completely her move had made further progress on my part impossible, I hated her. She had tricked me with her gracious ways and her slow-coming smile. And, after all--for what she had said--it was this man's life or mine. What had I done that another man would not do? Mon Dieu! In the future there was nothing I would not do. I would make her smart for those words of hers! I would bring her to her knees!
Still, hot as I was, an hour might have restored me to coolness. But when I started to return, I fell into a fresh rage, for I remembered that I did not know my way out of the maze of rides and paths into which she had drawn me; and this and the mishaps which followed kept my rage hot. For a full hour I wandered in the wood, unable, though I knew where the village lay, to find any track which led continuously in one direction. Whenever, at the end of each attempt, the thicket brought me up short, I fancied I heard her laughing on the farther side of the brake; and the ignominy of this chance punishment, the check which the confinement placed on my rage, almost maddened me. In the darkness, I fell, and rose cursing; I tore my hands with thorns; I stained my suit, which had suffered sadly once before. At length, when I had almost resigned myself to lie in the wood, I caught sight of the lights of the village, and trembling between haste and anger, pressed towards them. In a few minutes I stood in the little street.
The lights of the inn shone only fifty yards away; but before I could show myself even there pride suggested that I should do something to repair my clothes. I stopped, and scraped and brushed them; and, at the same time, did what I could to compose my features. Then I advanced to the door and knocked. Almost on the instant the landlord's voice cried from the inside, "Enter, Monsieur!"
I raised the latch and went in. The man was alone, squatting over the fire, warming his hands A black pot simmered on the ashes: as I entered, he raised the lid and peeped inside. Then he glanced over his shoulder.
"You expected me?" I said defiantly, walking to the hearth, and setting one of my damp boots on the logs.
"Yes," he answered, nodding curtly. "Your supper is just ready. I thought you would be in about this time."
He grinned as he spoke, and it was with difficulty I suppressed my wrath "Mademoiselle de Cocheforêt told you," I said, affecting indifference, "where I was?"
"Ay, Mademoiselle--or Madame," he replied, grinning afresh.
So she had told him where she had left me, and how she had tricked me! She had made me the village laughing-stock! My rage flashed out afresh at the thought, and, at the sight of his mocking face, I raised my fist.
But he read the threat in my eyes, and was up in a moment, snarling, with his hand on his knife. "Not again, Monsieur!" he cried, in his vile patois, "My head is sore still. Raise your hand, and I will rip you up as I would a pig!"
"Sit down, fool," I said. "I am not going to harm you. Where is your wife?"
"About her business."
"Which should be getting my supper," I retorted sharply.
He rose sullenly, and, fetching a platter, poured the mess of broth and vegetables into it. Then he went to a cupboard and brought out a loaf of black bread and a measure of wine, and set them also on the table. "You see it," he said laconically.
"And a poor welcome!" I exclaimed.
He flamed into sudden passion at that. Leaning with both his hands on the table, he thrust his rugged face and blood-shot eyes close to mine. His mustachios bristled; his beard trembled. "Hark ye, Sirrah!" he muttered, with sullen emphasis--"be content! I have my suspicions. And if it were not for my lady's orders I would put a knife into you, fair or foul, this very night. You would lie snug outside, instead of inside, and I do not think any one would be the worse. But, as it is, be content. Keep a still tongue; and when you turn your back on Cocheforêt to-morrow keep it turned."
"Tut! tut!" I said--but I confess I was a little out of countenance. "Threatened men live long, you rascal!"
"In Paris!" he answered significantly. "Not here, Monsieur."
He straightened himself with that, nodded once, and went back to the fire, and I shrugged my shoulders and began to eat, affecting to forget his presence. The logs on the hearth burned sullenly, and gave no light. The poor oil-lump, casting weird shadows from wall to wall, served only to discover the darkness. The room,