"On no account, thank you, Monsieur. I am perfectly recovered."
His host had his eyes fixed on the clear, pale visage. The daylight outside had now faded sufficiently to allow full play to the candelabrum on the table at his elbow, whose radiance struck its own unmistakable colour out of Aymar's hair.
M. de Lanascol moved suddenly. "Pardon me, again, Monsieur de la Rocheterie, but if I might presume . . . pray do not take it amiss if I suggest, that, with your appearance, you should be a little cautious how you traverse the country round Locmélar. Feeling is very strong there about the disaster at Pont-aux-Rochers, and though that man L'Oiseleur was subsequently shot by his own troops for it, it is rumoured that he is still alive. I once had a glimpse of him, and you are so . . . you resemble him so strikingly—though, of course, with a great difference—that I feel a warning. . . . Please believe that I have no intention of being offensive."
In the arctic, aching silence which succeeded this speech Laurent knew not whether his own heart-beats or the ticking of the clock were the louder. Oh, that they were back on the high road, at the inn, anywhere!
Aymar was on his feet. He had not flushed; his colourless face was unbetraying. "I am . . . L'Oiseleur. As you would evidently not wish to extend your hospitality to him, Monsieur, I will relieve you of the necessity."
He made the slightest, most formal inclination of the head, and walked towards the door. Laurent began hotly, "You are completely misinformed, Monsieur! There was no——"
But Aymar stopped him with a look, and after a second he turned and silently followed him out, leaving the old gentleman apparently petrified in the act of rising from his chair.
The door of the hall stood open, for it was a very warm evening. Without a word the two went through it, and down the steps and along the straight wide path to the gates. Venus hung in the west, lovely and indifferent to human hurts; an owl hooted in the distance. The silence between them was like heavy metal; what was there in all the world to say? Desperately Laurent cast about for the phrase that should break it, but they were walking down the avenue before he brought it out.
"We must go to the inn," he said in an almost unnaturally matter-of-fact manner. His companion did not reply for a moment. Then he said, still walking on,
"They may think me too much like 'that man L'Oiseleur' there also." His voice was curiously flat and toneless. Laurent braced himself to make his next suggestion.