It was clear, however, that Detricand felt differently. The moment she touched him he became suddenly still. He permitted her to wash the blood from his temple and forehead, to stanch it first with brandied jeru-leaves, then with cobwebs, and afterwards to bind it with her own kerchief.
Detricand thrilled at the touch of the warm, tremulous fingers. He had never been quite so near her before. His face was not far from hers. Now her breath fanned him. As he bent his head for the bandaging, he could see the soft pulsing of her bosom, and hear the beating of her heart. Her neck was so full and round and soft, and her voice—surely he had never heard a voice so sweet and strong, a tone so well poised, so resonantly pleasant.
When she had finished, he had an impulse to catch the hand as it dropped away from his forehead, and kiss it; not as he had kissed many a hand, hotly one hour and coldly the next, but with an unpurchasable kind of gratitude characteristic of this especial sort of sinner. He was just young enough, and there was still enough natural health in him, to know the healing touch of a perfect decency, a pure truth of spirit. Yet he had been drunk the night before, drunk with three noncommissioned officers—and he a gentleman, in spite of all, as could be plainly seen.
He turned his head away from the girl quickly, and looked straight into the eyes of her grandfather.
“I’ll tell you how it was, Sieur de Mauprat,” said he. “I was crossing the Place du Vier Prison when a rascal threw a cleaver at me from a window. If it had struck me on the head—well, the Royal Court would have buried me, and without a slab to my grave like Rullecour. I burst open the door of the house, ran up the stairs, gripped the ruffian, and threw him through the window into the street. As I did so a door opened behind, and another cut-throat came at me with a pistol. He fired—fired wide. I ran in on him, and before he had time to think he was out of the window too. Then the other brute below fired up at me. The bullet gashed my temple, as you see. After that, it was an affair of the connetable and his men. I had had enough fighting before breakfast. I saw your open door, and here I am—monsieur, monsieur, monsieur, mademoiselle!” He bowed to each of them and glanced towards the table hungrily.
Ranulph placed a seat for him. He viewed the conger eel and limpets with an avid eye, but waited for the chevalier and de Mauprat to sit. He had no sooner taken a mouthful, however, and thrown a piece of bread to Biribi the dog, than, starting again to his feet, he said:
“Your pardon, monsieur le chevalier, that brute in the Place has knocked all sense from my head! I’ve a letter for you, brought from Rouen by one of the refugees who came yesterday.” He drew from his breast a packet and handed it over. “I went out to their ship last night.”
The chevalier looked with surprise and satisfaction at the seal on the letter, and, breaking it, spread open the paper, fumbled for the eye-glass which he always carried in his waistcoat, and began reading diligently.
Meanwhile Ranulph turned to Guida. “To-morrow Jean Touzel and his wife and I go to the Ecrehos Rocks in Jean’s boat,” said he. “A vessel was driven ashore there three days ago, and my carpenters are at work on her. If you can go and the wind holds fair, you shall be brought back safe by sundown—Jean says so too.”
Of all boatmen and fishermen on the coast, Jean Touzel was most to be trusted. No man had saved so many shipwrecked folk, none risked his life so often; and he had never had a serious accident. To go to sea with Jean Touzel, folk said, was safer than living on land. Guida loved the sea; and she could sail a boat, and knew the tides and currents of the south coast as well as most fishermen.