"Isn't Jean Oullier dead?" replied Mère Chompré.
"But your daughter, where has your daughter gone?"
"I'm sure I don't know; she never tells me where she is going when she goes out. She is old enough to be the mistress of her own actions."
Bertha thought of the Picaut cottage; but to go there would take her an hour, and it might prove a waste of time. That hour would suffice to insure Michel's death.
"She will be back in a minute," she said to the old woman. "When she comes tell her I could not go as soon as she expected to the place she knows of; but I will be there before daylight."
Running to the stables, she slipped the bridle on the horse, sprang upon his back, rode him out of the building, and giving him a vigorous blow with a switch, put him at once into a gait that was neither trot nor gallop, but fast enough to gain half an hour at least on the soldiers. As she crossed the market-place of Saint-Philbert she heard on her right the receding footsteps of the little troop.
Then she took her bearings, passed the houses, dashed her horse into the river Boulogne, and came out to join the road a little above the forest of Machecoul.
[XXXIX.]
A WOUNDED SOUL.
Fortunately for Bertha the horse she was riding had better qualities than his appearance denoted. He was a little Breton beast which, when quiet, seemed gloomy, sad, depressed, like the men of his native region; but once warmed to action (like them again) he increased every moment in vigor and energy. With flaring nostrils, and his tangled mane floating in the wind, he attained to a gallop; presently his gallop became a run. Plains, valleys, and hedges passed and disappeared behind him with fantastic rapidity, while Bertha, bending low upon his neck, gave rein and urged him onward with voice and whip.