He raised her from the ground, threw his own dry cloak round her shoulders and unmanageable hair, and lifted her on his horse; but, as she would have leant against him, he drew himself away, beckoned Philip, and put the bridle into his hands, saying, ‘Take care of her. I shall ride on and warm the priest.’
‘The rock of diamond,’ she murmured, not aware that the diamond had been almost melting. That youthful gravity and resolution, with the mixture of respect and protection, imposed as usual upon her passionate nature, and daunted her into meekly riding beside Philip without a word—only now and then he heard a low moan, and knew that she was weeping bitterly.
At first the lad had been shocked beyond measure, and would have held aloof as from a kind of monster, but Madame de Selinville had been the first woman to touch his fancy, and when he heard how piteously she was weeping, and recollected where he should have been but for her, as well as all his own harshness to her as a cowardly boy, he felt himself brutally ungrateful, and spoke: ‘Don’t weep so, Madame; I am sorry I was rude to you, but you see, how should I take you for a woman?’
Perhaps she heard, but she heeded not.
‘My brother will take good care to shield you,’ Philip added. ‘He will take care you are safe in one of your nunneries;’ and as she only wept the more, he added, with a sudden thought, ‘You would not go there; you would embrace the Protestant faith?’
‘I would embrace whatever was his.’
Philip muttered something about seeing what could be done. They were already at the entrance of the village, and Berenger had come out to meet them, and, springing towards him, Philip exclaimed, in a low voice, ‘Berry, she would abjure her Popish errors! You can’t give her up to a priest.’
‘Foolery, Philip,’ answered Berenger, sternly.
‘If she would be a convert!’
‘Let her be a modest woman first;’ and Berenger, taking her bridle, led her to the priest’s house.