"Hugues?" There was a question and a cry in the boy's one word.
"Charles, Charles, have you nothing to say to the brave men who almost died for you?"
"Hugues loved me," he answered, and at the bitter pathos of the reply La Mothe forgot the ingratitude. There were so few who loved him. But the girl could not forget.
"Monsieur La Follette, Monsieur La Mothe," she began, but broke off with a cry. "Oh, Monsieur La Follette, you are wounded? What can I do? Words can come afterwards, and all my life I will remember, all my life. Are you dreadfully hurt? Can I not do something?" But though she spoke to La Follette her eyes, after the first glance, were busy searching Stephen La Mothe for just such an ominous stain as showed in brown patches upon La Follette. But there was none. Breathless, dishevelled, his clothing slashed, he was without a scratch, and the strained anxiety faded from her face.
"I can wait," answered La Follette, "we must get the Dauphin to the Château. La Mothe, see if they are gone," and he glanced significantly down the stairway. La Follette knew something of war, and there must be sights below it were better Ursula de Vesc should not see lest they haunt her all her life, sleeping or waking.
But the Dauphin, his nerves strained and raw, had grown petulant.
"It is safe enough. I heard them ride off. I want Hugues. I want
Hugues."
"And Blaise?"
"Oh! Blaise!" He broke into a discordant laugh. "I told him to be a man and, my faith! he was one. Do you think, Ursula, that Father John will ask my thoughts a second time?"