y, 'I have been a beast! You are
barefoot, and I have kept you here.'

'It is nothing,' she said in a voice which thrilled me. 'My heart is
warm, Monsieur--thanks to you. It is many hours since it has been as
warm.'

She stepped out of the shadow as she spoke--and there, the thing was
done. As I had planned, so it had come about. Once more I was crossing
the meadow in the dark to be received at Cocheforet, a welcome guest.
The frogs croaked in the pool and a bat swooped round us in circles;
and surely never--never, I thought, with a kind of exultation in my
breast--had man been placed in a stranger position.

Somewhere in the black wood behind us--probably in the outskirts of the
village--lurked M. de Cocheforet. In the great house before us, outlined
by a score of lighted windows, were the soldiers come from Auch to take
him. Between the two, moving side by side in the darkness, in a silence
which each found to be eloquent, were Mademoiselle and I: she who knew
so much, I who knew all--all but one little thing!

We reached the house, and I suggested that she should steal in first by
the way she had come out, and that I should wait a little and knock at
the door when she had had time to explain matters to Clon.

'They do not let me see Clon,' she answered slowly.

'Then your woman must tell him,' I rejoined, 'or he may do something and
betray me.'

'They will not let our women come to us.'

'What?' I cried, astonished. 'But this is infamous. You are not
prisoners!'

Mademoiselle laughed harshly.

'Are we not? Well, I suppose not; for if we wanted company, Captain
Larolle said that he would be delighted to see us--in the parlour.'

'He has taken your parlour?' I said.

'He and his lieutenant sit there. But I suppose that we rebels should be
thankful,' she added bitterly; 'we have still our bedrooms left to us.'

'Very well,' I said. 'Then I must deal with Clon as I can. But I have
still a favour to ask, Mademoiselle. It is only that you and your sister
will descend to-morrow at your usual time. I shall be in the parlour.'

'I would rather not,' she said, pausing and speaking in a troubled
voice.

'Are you afraid?'

'No, Monsieur, I am not afraid,' she answered proudly, 'but--'

'You will come?' I said.

She sighed before she spoke. At length,--

'Yes, I will come--if you wish it,' she answered. And the next moment
she was gone round the corner of the house, while I laughed to think
of the excelle