It would have been discourteous to remain longer beside the carriage after this overture and its rejection. Monsieur d'Argentan therefore set off at a gallop, telling Mademoiselle Rotrou that he would order her relay at Orléans.
Any other than the proud Diane de Fargas, any one whose heart was not incased in steel, would have noticed the refinement, the courtesy and the beauty of the traveller. But whether she was destined to remain forever indifferent, or whether her heart needed to be more violently appealed to, certain it is that none of all that which would have caught another woman's eye attracted her glance.
Entirely absorbed in her hatred, and wholly unable to dismiss the object of her journey from her mind, even while she smiled she pressed the dagger to her side, as if remorseful for that smile; that dagger which, as we said, opened the way for her brother's soul to precede hers to heaven.
Looking along the road, to see if she were indeed alone, and discerning no one as far as eye could reach, she drew from her pocket the last note her brother had written her, and read and re-read it, as one will impatiently and yet persistently taste of a bitter root. Then she fell back in a doze, and remained thus until the carriage stopped for fresh horses.
She looked about her. The horses were ready, as Monsieur d'Argentan had promised her they would be; but when she inquired after him, she was told that he had gone on ahead.
They stopped five minutes to change horses, then they took the road to Blois.
At the first turn, the young lady saw her handsome courier, riding slowly, as if waiting for her; but this indiscretion, if indiscretion it were, was so inexcusable that it was excused.
Mademoiselle Rotrou soon overtook the rider. It was she this time who spoke first, to thank him for the courtesy he had shown her.
"For my part," replied the young man, "I thank my lucky star for leading me by the same route as yourself to the police commissioner, and there permitting me to yield you my place, and thereby to learn from your passport where you were going. As chance wills it, my road is the same as yours; for while you are going to Vitré, I am going some twenty miles beyond, to Dinan. If you are not to remain in the neighborhood, at least I shall have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of a charming person, and of accompanying her at least nine-tenths of the way. On the other hand, if you do remain, as my business requires me to travel to and fro through the departments of the Manche, Nord, and Ille-et-Vilaine, I shall ask permission, when chance recalls me to Vitré, to bring myself to mind, unless that reminder be disagreeable to you."
"I do not know myself how long I shall remain at Vitré" she replied, graciously rather than curtly. "In reward for services rendered by my father, I have been appointed, as you see, post-mistress at Vitré. But I do not think that I shall fill the position myself. I was ruined by the Revolution, and I shall be obliged in some way to take advantage of the favor which the government has bestowed upon me. I think I shall either sell or rent the position, and thus draw an income from it without being obliged to exert myself personally."