“I will go and speak to those men coming up,” continued Jean Plessis, “and prevent them addressing your man, and will send for another horse to take us to the château;” so saying he left the lieutenant with the two maidens.
Our hero, though exceedingly puzzled, and, indeed, somewhat bewildered by the whole affair, but particularly by his having to take the name of Tourville, and to pass for the brother of the beautiful girl who stood before him, advanced, and looking Mademoiselle de Tourville in the face, said—
“You are still, I fear, mademoiselle, much frightened; I wish I had been so fortunate as to have been nearer, I might have prevented those rascals altogether from frightening and insulting you.”
Mademoiselle de Tourville made an attempt to reply, but the words died away on her lips, and with difficulty she kept from giving way to tears.
Seeing the distress of her companion, Mademoiselle Plessis at once said—
“I am sure, monsieur, we are deeply grateful for the assistance you so very opportunely rendered us. My friend was terrified perhaps more than she otherwise would have been by the man who held her, firing a pistol full in your face.”
“That was certainly the case,” added Mademoiselle de Tourville, in a trembling voice, and her eyes resting for an instant on the Lieutenant’s features. It was but for a second, yet the look of those full, dark, and wonderfully expressive eyes, created a strange and undefined feeling in our hero’s breast. He bowed, and replied, he felt proud of her interest in his safety, and hoped in a very short time she would feel quite restored; and then added, with a smile—
“According to Monsieur Plessis, I am to sustain the part of a brother, so that I only acted, as if by intuition, the character I was to perform. But who were those villains? were they mere robbers?”
“We cannot tell, monsieur,” said Mademoiselle Plessis. “We never heard of robbers in these parts. We came down the Seine from Arlet to Rouen, and then my father, having to visit one or two farms on the way, hired this berlin to take us to the château, and to show the country to my friend. My mother and our female domestics went on in the barge to Havre, and I dare say are at the château by this time.”
Jean Plessis here joined them, saying—