"Oh! a long way from here, my saint. We did not start from Ghent till four o'clock in the afternoon, and have been jogging along at foot-pace ever since. Oh! these interminable roads, and horrible, jolting wagons! It was about two hours ago that we came on Messire van Rycke riding like one possessed."
"He was riding toward Ghent?"
"Toward Ghent, my saint. And as I told you--as soon as he had given Jan his orders, he flew by like the wind. The roads were quite lonely after that. I tell you, my saint, I was passing glad that we had a good escort--two mounted men you know rode beside the wagon--or I should have been mightily afraid of malefactors."
"You gave the sealed packet to Messire Laurence van Rycke," asked Lenora, "as I had directed?"
"I gave him the packet two hours after you had started."
"And what did he say?"
"He said nothing, my saint."
With a weary sigh, Lenora turned her head away. She kept her eyes closed resolutely, and after a while Inez thought that she slept. So she tip-toed quietly out of the room, having drawn the coverlet well over her mistress' form. She left the lamp in the room, for she had enough understanding to know that Lenora was perturbed and anxious, and in times of anxiety darkness is oft an evil counsellor.
BOOK THREE: GHENT
CHAPTER XII