"Young girl, young girl," said the widow, evading a reply to this request, "it is I, whom the partisans of that woman have made a widow, who urge you to make haste and save her; and it is you, who boast of being faithful to her, who hesitate to go!"
"No, no; that is not so!" cried Bertha. "I do not hesitate; I am going."
She made a motion to go out; the widow stopped her.
"You cannot go to Nantes on foot; you would get there too late. In the stable of this house you will find two horses; take either you please, and tell the hostler to saddle him."
"Oh," said Bertha, "I can saddle him myself. But what can we ever do for you, my poor widow, who have twice saved her life?"
"Tell her to remember what I said to her in my cottage beside the bodies of two men killed for her sake; tell her that it is a crime to bring discord and civil war into a region where her enemies themselves protect her from treachery. Go, mademoiselle, go! and may God guide you."
So saying, the widow left the house hurriedly,--going first to the rector of Saint-Philbert, whom she asked to visit the citadel, and then, as rapidly as possible, she struck across the fields to her own house.
[XXXVIII.]
THE RED-BREECHES.
For the last twenty-four hours Bertha's anxiety had been extreme. It was not only on Courtin that her suspicions fell; they extended to Michel himself.