"I have not forgotten that; you can remain here no longer, and there is but one thing to be done. Isidore must take you at once and place you under the care of Greboeuf, at St. Sulpice. Ask me no questions; I have my reasons, but I cannot tell them. Alas! that it should ever fall to my lot to bid you, whom I have loved so dearly, to leave my own father's house!"
For a few minutes the two girls were clasped in each other's arms; but Clotilde soon regained her composure, and assuming as cheerful a face as she could, impressed upon her friend the necessity of carrying out her plan, which was this. She herself was to depart in the coach sufficiently disguised to pass for Marguerite; the latter, putting on Clotilde's cloak and hood, was immediately afterwards to leave the chateau with Isidore and go off to St. Sulpice. Clotilde was to let them know on the following day, through old Perigord, how matters stood at Beaujardin, so that they might act accordingly. By this time the horses had been baited, and all being now arranged, Isidore took down his cousin and hurried her into the vehicle, which started off at once.
Not a little perplexed and anxious at the turn things had taken, Clotilde leaned back in the comfortable coach and called to mind the various incidents of the day. At first her cheek flushed with indignation at the thought of her mother's conduct towards one whom hospitality and the commonest feeling of pity should have protected from such treatment. To think that it was her own mother! Clotilde covered her face with her hands and gave way to her tears. She was, however, not one of those who fold their hands and let circumstances overmaster them. She had by nature both the wit and the courage that can turn things to the best account; quickly drying her tears, therefore, she set herself to consider how she might take advantage of this unexpected visit to Beaujardin. She could not but fear that the baroness intended to carry off Marguerite to some safe place, where there would be no means of communicating with Isidore; such things were not seldom done, and with a strong hand too, when it was found necessary to cut the gordian knot of a family difficulty. In this design she would be foiled, at least for the present, and with the help of M. Perigord and his friends Marguerite might be kept out of harm's way. In the meanwhile Clotilde would have an opportunity of appealing to her uncle, who, she fully believed, would never countenance any positive ill-treatment of one who might be said to have been bequeathed to the hospitality of the family. She might have doubted even her own ability to detach the marquis from the enemy's ranks but for one little circumstance, which was this. On hearing Isidore's account of the scene at the Chateau de Beaujardin, and the incident of the charred scrap of paper, Clotilde had gone and examined the stove in the apartment occupied by Isidore during his recent visit. Not a trace could she find of anything having been burnt there, and a minute questioning of the domestics had proved beyond a doubt that any story of the burning of the letter in that room was a fabrication. She knew well her uncle's intense abhorrence of anything like treachery or deceit. It was indeed this trait in his disposition that had led to his severity towards Isidore, and it was on this that she now relied for the success of her efforts to enlist the sympathy of the old marquis in favour of her cousin and her friend.
Absorbed in these thoughts Clotilde took no note of time or distance, while the growing darkness and the absence of novelty in a ride from Valricour to Beaujardin, to say nothing of the pre-occupation of her mind, kept her from observing anything outside of the lumbering vehicle in which she sat. They had jogged on for a considerable time, however, when the coach stopped. Under ordinary circumstances this would hardly have interfered with Clotilde's meditations, the occurrence being common enough at a period when in France, as in other countries, most of the roads, except those along which the king himself was accustomed to travel, were usually in a deplorable condition, notwithstanding the lessons left behind by those famous old road-makers the Romans, and in spite of the iniquitous road-laws which threw upon all but the nobles an intolerable amount of personal labour in the making and maintaining of the highways. But on the present occasion Clotilde's attention was arrested by the circumstance that men were busy changing the horses, and although it was now dark, she noticed at the roadside a great white stone cross, from which she knew that they must have turned off from the direct road to Beaujardin. Surprised, and perhaps a little alarmed, she tried to open one of the windows to obtain some explanation, but it was so tightly fastened that she found this impossible. She tried the other, but that too defied all her efforts, and whilst she was still thus engaged the coach was once more driven on, and now at a gallop. Then, as she peered anxiously out, she observed that the horseman who rode close to the carriage was a much bigger man than the groom from Beaujardin who had started with them from Valricour, and that he was muffled in a great riding-cloak. Clotilde was one of those women whose courage rises just when that of others usually fails: without an instant's hesitation she stooped down, and the next moment the high wooden heel of one of her shoes sent the window-pane flying in shivers out upon the road. A touch of the spur at once brought her escort alongside of the broken window.
"Holloa!" he exclaimed, in a voice Clotilde had never heard before, "what is all this about?"
"Fellow!" she replied, indignantly, "what is the meaning of this? Who are you?—and why have we gone out of our road?"
"Ah, well," answered the man coolly, "of course it is natural enough that you should want to know, but——"
"Impudent scoundrel!" cried Clotilde, "stop the carriage this moment and let me alight, or——"
"Look you, mademoiselle," the horseman here broke in, bringing his face at the same time close to the carriage window, and speaking sternly, though in a low voice, as if to avoid being overheard, "you seem to be a fine spirited young lady, and I should be sorry to let that bring you into more trouble. You are not going to Beaujardin this time. I have my orders to take you somewhere else. Now just listen, no harm will come to you if you keep quiet and go peaceably. What is more, I give you my word, if you choose to take it, that I am going to hand you over to the safe keeping of a lady who, I suppose, will treat you as a gentlewoman ought to be treated, but go you must—there's no help for that. 'Tis of no use trying to raise an alarm; that might only cost a couple of lives, perhaps," and here the speaker just opened his heavy mantle sufficiently to show the butt ends of two heavy pistols at his belt. "So, mademoiselle," he concluded, "be complaisant, and make the best of a bad business."
For a few minutes Clotilde felt overwhelmed and almost stunned at finding herself suddenly, and without the slightest warning, in a position so strange and obviously so full of peril. As soon as she could collect herself, however, a light broke in upon her, and with it a faint hope of escape.