The friars consulted together and shook their cowled heads, looking not unlike birds of prey gloating over some poor trapped wild thing. They said that the women were firebrands, and far too dangerous to be allowed to go through the land—that the duke allowed none of the so-called Reformed religion to dwell or pass in Piedmont; and that Mistress Botta and the girl must travel in their company to Luserna, ‘where further decisions would be arrived at.’
That night the two women found means of escape. They gained the open air, the hills, the steep and intricate ways known only to the people of the valleys; and presently, after some days of wandering, they found themselves once more in their cavern. The tears rolled down Rénée’s cheeks as she entered—it was present safety, indeed, but must they still wait there, and watch for the footsteps that might never come—for the news which seemed further from them than ever?
Then Madeleine fell sick. Some slow fever consumed her; and for days and nights she lay so ill that Rénée could find no place in her thoughts for aught but ‘mother.’ And when at last she seemed to revive somewhat, and her wandering reason returned to her, she was so exceeding weak and frail that the girl feared she would die from very weariness.
It was hard to get necessaries, harder still to obtain the food fitted for a sick woman’s needs, but Rénée never flagged nor faltered all through that terrible time.
She drove the straying goats from the mountain, that her mother might have draughts of their milk; she managed to make charcoal of her store of dry wood, and that so carefully that no volume of smoke or flame could betray their hiding-place. She ran down to the valley for the few bunches of grapes which might yet be left on the broken and neglected vines; and once, but only once, she dared to enter the village of Rumero, where she bartered her own long silver chain for a warm coverlet for Madeleine.
And the autumn came, and the winter. And the icicles had been hung across their cave, and the raging winds had careered there, while the avalanches thundered amongst the higher Alps, and the sunsets lay crimson on the bosom of the snows. Then came the creeping warmth and the blessing of the spring, and the sick woman revived, as did the flowers where the sunshine made glory on the springing grass.
Madeleine Botta rose from her rock bed almost as hale as ever, and her voice had scarcely lost anything of its fulness when she sang that evening hymn, the ‘Psalm of Strong Confidence.’
But Rénée, as the light grew longer and the sweet benediction of the year stole over the frost-held earth, as the swollen streams leapt laughing down amongst the flowers, and the song-birds called in music one to the other, Rénée grew silent and sad.
Life would be easier now. Her mother was in no danger of death or suffering. There would be little to do up there in their cliff cave. Little to do but to wait.
Ah, and the waiting time is the hardest time to such hearts as that of Rénée Janavel.