“No, I haven’t,” he replied. “I’ve only had your horse tethered so that he can’t stray. As for your pistol, you can have that back now if you wish,” he added, diving his hand into his pocket and pulling out the weapon. “Though what in the world you want with an unloaded duelling pistol—”
He stopped suddenly, feeling the balance of the gun, and stepped into the moonlight to examine it more closely. Eustacie saw that he was very tall and fair, dressed in a common frieze coat and breeches, with a coloured handkerchief round his neck, and his pale gold hair loosely tied back from his face. He looked up from the pistol in his hand, and said sharply: “How did you come by this?”
“Well, it is not precisely my own,” said Eustacie. “It—”
“I know that. Who gave it to you?”
“Nobody gave it to me!”
“Do you mean you stole it?”
“Of course I did not steal it! I have just borrowed it because I thought it would be a good thing to take a pistol with me. Du vrai, it belongs to my cousin Ludovic, but I feel very certain that he would not mind lending it to me, because he is of all my family the most romantic.”
The free trader came back to her side in two quick strides. “Who the devil are you?” he demanded.
“I do not see what concern it is—”
He put his hands on her shoulders and shook her. “Never mind that! Who are you?”