"No, by heaven, to-night!" fiercely and hoarsely muttered Gavot, "to-night or never for the brown and ugly Mam'selle Jo. To-night will make the morrows safe for me. If I stopped to consider, I could not put it through."
With that Gavot, big, handsome, and breathing hard, strode from the tavern and took to the King's Highway.
The wind rushed past him; pushed ahead; pressed at Jo's door with its warning. But she did not speak, and only when Gavot himself thumped on the panel was Jo roused from her revery and Nick from his puppy dreams.
"Who's there?" shouted Mam'selle, and clumped across the floor in her father's old boots. She slipped on one of the rugs and slid to the entrance before regaining her balance.
"It is I, Mam'selle, I, Pierre Gavot."
Jo opened the door at once.
"Well," she said with a calmness and serenity that chilled the excited man, "it's a long way from here to Mastin's and the hour's late, tell your business and get on your way, Pierre Gavot. Come in, sit by the fire. My, what a wind is stirring. Now, then—out with it!"
This crude opening to what Pierre hoped would be a dramatic scene, sweeping Jo Morey off her feet, nonplussed the would-be gallant not a little. He sat heavily down and eyed Nick uneasily. The dog was sniffing at his heels in a most suspicious fashion. Every hair of his body was on guard and his eyes were alert and forbidding.
"Well, Pierre Gavot, what is your errand?"
This did not improve matters and a shuffling motion toward Nick with a heavy boot concluded the investigation on the dog's part. Nick was convinced of the caller's disposition; he showed his teeth and growled.