"Offended me!—oh Madame!"
These words were uttered with an accent and an expression so peculiar that the young lady looked up in surprise, and saw that the priest's eyes were full of tears.
For at moment she was silent; then, affecting an air of gaiety, "Adieu, M. le Curé," she cried as she turned away; "be more neighbourly in future."
Then, seeing that he still held the wounded partridge, "Alas! that poor bird," she exclaimed; "it is trembling still!"
"Ah, Madame la Comtesse," said Père Jacques. "I'll engage that, if M. le Curé opened his hand, that cunning partridge would be a mile away in half a minute!"
"Do you think it will live? Well, Père Jacques, take care of it for my sake. Feed it for two or three days, and then give the poor bird its liberty."
"Sister!" said the dragoon, in a tone of impatience, "the storm is coming on."
"Adieu all!" were the last words of the Countess, as she took her brother's arm, and went down the rough pathway leading to the valley.
In a few minutes more they had mounted their horses and set off at a quick gallop towards the turreted château that peeped above the trees three miles away. The priest and the herdsmen stood watching them in silence till they disappeared round an angle of rock, and listened till the faint echo of the horns died away in the distance.
"Dear little Queen Marguerite!" exclaimed Père Jacques, when all was silent. "Dear little Queen Marguerite, how good and kind she is!"