ded; "see, he
is turning about!" And with keen disappointment the girls saw the
horseman wheel suddenly, and gallop back on the road he had come. At the
last moment, by a mighty effort, Willan had wrenched his will to the
decision that he would not seek Victorine at the mill.

And this was why, when her aunt told her that he had been at the inn
during their absence, Victorine shrugged her shoulders, and said with so
pleased a laugh, "Eh! that is good." She understood by a lightning
intuition all which had happened,--that he had ridden towards the mill
seeking her, and had changed his mind at the last, and gone away. But
she kept her own counsel, told nobody that she had seen him, and said in
her mischievous heart, "He will be back before long."

And so he was; but not even Victorine, with all her confidence in the
strength of the hold she had so suddenly acquired on him, could have
imagined how soon and with what purpose he would return. On the evening
of the sixth day, just at sunset, he appeared, walking with his
saddle-bags on his shoulders and leading his horse. The beast limped
badly, and had evidently got a sore hurt. Old Benoit was standing in the
arched entrance of the courtyard as they approached.

"Marry, but that beast is in a bad way!" he exclaimed, and went to meet
them. Benoit loved a horse; and Willan Blaycke's black stallion was a
horse to which any man's heart might well go out, so knowing, docile,
proud, and swift was the creature, and withal most beautifully made. The
poor thing went haltingly enough now, and every few minutes stopped and
looked around piteously into his master's face.

"And the man doth look as distressed as the beast," thought Benoit, as
he drew near; "it is a good man that so loves an animal." And Benoit
warmed toward Willan as he saw his anxious face.

If Benoit had only known! No wonder Willan's face was sorrow-stricken!
It was he himself that had purposely lamed the stallion, that he might
have plain and reasonable excuse for staying at the Golden Pear some
days. He had not meant to hurt the poor creature so much, and his
conscience pricked him horribly at every step the horse took. He patted
him on his neck, spoke kindly to him, and did all in his power to atone
for his cruelty. That all was very little, however, for each step was
torture to the beast; his fore feet were nearly bleeding. This was what
Willan had done: the day before he had taken off two of the horse's
shoe