Lydie sank on to the rough bench, leaning well back and resting her head against the hard, uneven back of the seat. Her eyes gazed straight upwards to a patch of vivid blue sky, almost crude and artificial-looking above the canopy of the beeches.
She felt unspeakably lonely, unspeakably forsaken. The sense of injustice oppressed her even more than the atmosphere of treachery.
Her father false and weak; her husband fickle and unjust! Prince Charles Edward abandoned, and she now powerless, probably, to carry through the work of rescue which she had planned! Until this moment she had not realized how much she had counted on her husband to help her. Now that she could no longer ask him to ride to Le Havre, and take her message to the commander of Le Monarque, she cast about her in vain for a substitute: some one whom she could trust. Her world was made up of sycophants, of flatterers, of pleasure-loving fops. Where was the man who would cover one hundred and eighty leagues in one night in order to redeem a promise made by France?
Her head ached with the agony of this thought. It was terrible to see her most cherished hope threatened with annihilation. Oh! had she been a man! . . .
Tears gathered in her eyes. At other times she would have scorned the weakness, now she welcomed it, for it seemed to lift the load of oppression from her heart. The glare of that vivid blue sky above weighed down her lids. She closed her eyes and for the space of a few seconds she seemed to forget everything; the world, and its treachery, the palace of Versailles, the fugitives in Scotland.
Everything except her loneliness, and the sound of that cry: "Lydie!"
CHAPTER XVIII
CLEVER TACTICS
As soon as M. Durand had recovered from the shock of Madame la Marquise's sudden invasion of his sanctum, he ran to the portière which he had been watching so anxiously, and, pushing it aside, he disclosed the door partially open.
"Monsieur le Comte de Stainville!" he called discreetly.