"We would better change horses," said Rupert; "mine is a Barb, swift as the wind."
But Cluny could not make the change proposed without some delay, his papers and jewels being bestowed in his saddle linings. So with a good wish the two men parted, and there was no anger between them;—admiration and good will had taken its place. Neville hastened forward, as he had been advised, and Rupert returned to Paris. He knew Matilda was expecting him, and he pictured to himself her disappointment and anxiety at his non-appearance; it was also her last evening in Paris, and it grieved him to miss precious hours of love, that might never be given him again. Yet he was physically exhausted, and as soon as he threw himself upon a couch he forgot all his weariness and all his anxieties in a deep sleep.
Matilda was not so happy as to find this oblivion. She knew over what social pitfalls every man of prominence in Paris walked—in the King's favour one day, in the Bastile the next day—and that this very insecurity of all good things made men reckless. Rupert might have offended King Louis or the great Cardinal. She imagined a hundred causes for flight or fight or imprisonment; she recalled one story after another of nobles and gentlemen seen flourishing in the presence of Louis one day and then never seen again. She knew that plots and counterplots, party feuds and family hatreds, were everywhere rife; and that Rupert was rash and outspoken, and had many enemies among the courtiers of Louis and the exiled nobles of England, not to speak of the Commonwealth spies, to whom he was an object of superstitious hatred, who regarded his blackamoors as familiar spirits, and believed firmly that "he had a devil," and worked evil charms by the devil's help and advice. And above all, and through these sad forebodings, there was the ever present likelihood of a duel. Every man had sword in hand, ready to settle some terrible or trivial quarrel—though it did not require a quarrel to provoke the duel; men fought for a word, for a sign, for the colour of a ribbon, for nothing at all, for the pleasure of killing themselves to kill time.
Matilda was keenly alive to all these possible tragedies, and when her lover failed to keep what was likely to be their last tryst, she was more frightened than angry; yet when Rupert came at an exceptionally early hour in the morning, and she saw him safe and well, her anxiety became flavoured with displeasure.
"How could you so cruelly disappoint me?" she cried. "You see now that our time is nearly gone; in a few hours we must part, perhaps forever."
"My dearest, loveliest Mata, I was about your pleasure. I was following Lord Neville, and he took me further than I expected. When my business was done with him, I had twenty miles to ride back to Paris; and I confess to you, I was so weary that I could only sleep. In your love, remember how lately I have been sick to death."
"Lord Neville again! The man is an incubus. Why did you follow him?"
"You wished me to give him a lesson. He was going homeward. I had to ride last night, or let him escape. By my troth, I had only your pleasure in mind."
"Oh, but the price paid was too great! I had to give up your society for hours. That is a loss I shall mourn to the end of my life. I hope, then, that you killed him. Nothing less will suffice for it."
"I was out of fortune, as I always am. I had an accident, and was at his mercy. He gave me my life."