ad passed, and was weeping
hysterically, "pardon me, Mademoiselle, but I must lift him out of the
heat and dust."

With tender hands he raised his comrade, and carried him into the
shade. He was a skilled surgeon--taught by frequent experience--and with
help from the women soon had the wound bandaged. In the meantime
Roberval had recovered from his swoon, and was rubbing his eyes with
amazement at the strange turn events had taken.

"How came you here?" exclaimed he to La Pommeraye.

"My evil genius prompted me to come to the aid of an ungrateful
nobleman," replied Charles, laughingly. "But it was just as well for you
that I did. However, it was a grand fight; and could I only have one
like it every day in France, you would not get me to go to Canada. But I
will not equivocate, Sieur," he added in a lower voice, drawing Roberval
a little aside, "I came here, as no doubt did De Pontbriand, who was, I
believe, in Paris yesterday, to accompany you on your way to Picardy.
Why, you know best, but we cannot speak of it now."

De Roberval scowled, and then exclaimed with enthusiasm:

"You are a noble fellow! There were five against us when I fell, and now
your bloody sword tells a heroic tale. But here, Etienne," and he turned
to his only surviving retainer, who had stood all this time staring
stupidly at La Pommeraye as if he had been a god suddenly descended from
the sky, "look to the wounded, and you, Bastienne, help him. Are all my
brave fellows dead? See what can be done, and then ride like the wind to
the inn, five leagues ahead of us, and fetch men to bury the dead and
bear the wounded home. But what is this? De Pontbriand wounded?"

Claude was still unconscious. He was borne to the inn on a rude litter
of boughs, and there La Pommeraye watched and tended him till he was out
of danger. But he was still too weak to be moved, and with the wretched
accommodation and attendance which the inn afforded, his recovery bade
fair to be slow. Seeing this, De Roberval had him removed to his castle,
which was but a few leagues distant, and there Charles, who was not
included in the invitation, was reluctantly obliged to leave his friend
and return to St Malo alone. He would have been much more reluctant had
not the tears which Marie had shed, as he imagined, over Claude's body,
convinced him still more firmly that she was the object of his
affection.

And so it happened that Claude spent a large part of the winter in
Picardy