“I cannot tell you, m’sieu’. Ah, pardon! She but waited for the night, when I could bring her food—all that would keep and that she could carry—and then she started on foot for the mountains of Gatine.”
“Now, mon Dieu! they must be twenty leagues away.”
“Twenty-five, m’sieu’, by La Roche Chalais and Mareuil. But she would avoid the towns, and journey by way of the woods and the harsh desolate country. Mother of God! but it makes me weep to think of her white face and her tender feet in those frightful solitudes.”
“It is madness!”
“But indeed, m’sieu’. And, though the towns gather all to them and the country is depopulated, there may be savages still left here and there—swineherds, charcoal-burners, to whom that libertine Lacombe——”
“Silence, girl! And you would have denied her a protector!”
“She bound me to silence, m’sieu’, lest her uncle should send in pursuit.”
“It is madness—it is madness. And what does she go to seek in the mountains?”
“Ah! m’sieu’, I know not—unless it is some haven of rest where the footstep of man is never heard.”
“Now, Georgette; will you meet me to-night where you met her, and bring me food—for which I will pay you—and point me out the way that Mademoiselle Carinne took at parting? I have a mind to journey to the mountains, also, and to go by the harsh country and to start in the dark. Will you, Georgette?”