account; shame that
she had so lowered herself, even to save her brother, vexation that
defeat had been her only reward.

Of this I saw a sign at Lectoure, where the inn had but one common room
and we must all dine in company. I secured for them a table by the fire,
and leaving them standing by it, retired myself to a smaller one near
the door. There were no other guests; which made the separation between
us more marked. M. de Cocheforet seemed to feel this. He shrugged his
shoulders and looked across the room at me with a smile half sad half
comical. But Mademoiselle was implacable. She had taken off her mask,
and her face was like stone. Once, only once during the meal, I saw a
change come over her. She coloured, I suppose at her thoughts, until her
face flamed from brow to chin. I watched the blush spread and spread;
and then she slowly and proudly turned her shoulder to me and looked
through the window at the shabby street.

I suppose that she and her brother had both built on this attempt, which
must have been arranged at Auch. For when we went on in the afternoon,
I marked a change in them. They rode like people resigned to the worst.
The grey realities of the position, the dreary future began to hang like
a mist before their eyes, began to tinge the landscape with sadness,
robbed even the sunset of its colours. With each hour Monsieur's spirits
flagged and his speech became less frequent; until presently when the
light was nearly gone and the dusk was round us the brother and sister
rode hand in hand, silent, gloomy, one at least of them weeping. The
cold shadow of the Cardinal, of Paris, of the scaffold fell on them, and
chilled them. As the mountains which they had known all their lives
sank and faded behind us, and we entered on the wide, low valley of
the Garonne, their hopes sank and faded also--sank to the dead level of
despair. Surrounded by guards, a mark for curious glances, with pride
for a companion, M. de Cocheforet could have borne himself bravely;
doubtless would bear himself bravely still when the end came. But almost
alone, moving forward through the grey evening to a prison, with so many
measured days before him, and nothing to exhilarate or anger--in this
condition it was little wonder if he felt, and betrayed that he felt,
the blood run slow in his veins; if he thought more of the weeping wife
and ruined home which he had left behind him than of the cause in which
he had spent himself.

But