CHAPTER XXVIII
A LIE FOR A LIFE
"Mademoiselle Suzanne!" I cried, and at what she read in my face the white in her cheeks went to the pink of a shell. "Why! what does this mean?"
"That there are more roads than one to Orthez, Monsieur; and that Father Paulus, who is within, will tell you the rest."
"But, Mademoiselle——"
"But, Monsieur, the roads are free to all; only," and turning on the midway landing of the stairs up which I followed her, leaving Martin and the landlord to care for the horses, she went on, lowering her voice, "remember that henceforward there is no longer a Mademoiselle de Narbonne, only Suzanne D'Orfeuil. Father Paulus is here, Monsieur de Helville."
Thenceforward? What thenceforward did she mean? And why, in a chief city of Navarre, should a Narbonne of Morsigny deny her name? Taking my two hands in both his at the top of the stairs, Father Paul answered my second question as directly as if I had spoken aloud.
"Though it is Orthez, it is also a post of the King of France, and to travel as Suzanne D'Orfeuil is less risk."
"To travel? To travel where?"
"To Plessis, my son."
"Did you think," broke in Mademoiselle through my dismayed protest, the door being shut behind us, "did you really think us so cold, so callous, so ungrateful? If so, then we have not taught you much in our two months, Monsieur."