ind me, the wind
whipping the color to her cheeks and playing with her hair, her eyes
bright and gay in the half-light. Save for the steady plodding of the
horse, it was very still. I fancied that she had leaned nearer, that her
shoulder was touching mine, that I could feel her breath on my cheek.
Then she spoke, and her voice was almost a whisper.

"It was good of you to take me with you," she said.

"Surely, Mademoiselle," I replied, "You did not think that I would
leave you?"

"I should, if I had been you," she answered, "I was rude to you,
Monsieur, and unjust to you this morning. You see I did not know."

"You did not know?"

"That the son would be as brave and as resourceful as the father. You
are, Monsieur, and yet you are different."

"Yes," I said.

"And I am glad, glad," said Mademoiselle.

"And I am sorry you are glad," I said.

"You are sorry?"

"Perhaps, Mademoiselle," I replied with a tinge of bitterness I could not
suppress, "if I had seen more of the world, if my clothes were in better
taste, and my manners less abrupt--you would feel differently. I wonder.
But let us be silent, for we are almost there."

As we drew near, making our way through damp thickets, a sense of
uneasiness came over me. Somehow I feared we might be too late, though I
knew that this was hardly possible. I feared, and yet I knew well enough
it was written somewhere that we should meet once more. With six men
after him he would not have ridden straight to the place. We should meet,
and it would be different from our other meetings. I wished that it was
light enough to see his face.

At a turn of the path I reined up and listened. It was very still.
Already the light had gone out of the sky, and little was left of the
land about us, save varying tones of black. Had he gone?

I cautiously dismounted. In a minute we should see. In a minute--Then
Mademoiselle interrupted me, and I was both astonished and irritated, for
my nerves were more on edge than I cared to have them. She was right. She
was never overwrought.

"We are there?" she inquired.

"Softly, Mademoiselle," I cautioned her. "If you will dismount, you can
see the place. It is not three hundred feet beyond the thicket. So! You
will admit it is not much to look at. If you will hold the horse's head,
I will go forward."

I did not listen to an objection that she was framing, but slipped
hastily through the trees. As the ugly mass of the house took a more
ce