“You are only a boy,” she said; and her tone was more tender. “You have been too long in your mother’s leading-strings. But you have in you the making of a man, my friend, and I know that I shall live to be proud of you.”
I caught her hand and kissed it—a kiss not of love but of gratitude. I swear that at that moment passion was as dead in me as though it had never been.
We went on in silence after that. I had my bitter draught to swallow, and swallow it I did without flinching, for all pretty euphemism had been stripped away.
“Mademoiselle,” I said at last, “I hope that in time you will pardon me. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart that you had the courage to speak as you did just now. It was the only way to open my eyes to my real self. Believe me, I shall be brave enough to look at it steadily.”
She held out her hand with a quick gesture.
“I am sure you will,” she said very softly. “And let me tell you one thing more: I shall always be a better woman for having known you.”
Again I kissed her hand,—humbly as a slave might,—and again we went on in silence. The moon rose and threw our shadows far before us along the road. We came at last to the rough and uneven ground I had seen from the hillside and here we found the way more difficult, for the road grew narrow and uneven, with high untrimmed hedges closing it in on either hand and sometimes even meeting overhead, so that we seemed to be stumbling forward in a tunnel into which no ray of light could penetrate. I aided her as well as I could, but even then it was disheartening and exhausting work.
“We must rest,” I said; “we must rest;” and I led her to a seat in the shadow of the hedge.
“I shall recover in a moment,” she protested. “We must reach Coulonges to-night. I have set my heart on it. Remember, we burnt our ships behind us when we abandoned our provisions.”
“We shall reach Coulonges,” I said confidently. “At the next house I will inquire the way.”