“Well, it is easy to see that that lady told you to kill my mistress,” resumed Francine, who knew the faithful discretion of the peasant, and wished to relieve his scruples.
Marche-a-Terre lowered his head significantly. To the Cottin girl that was answer enough.
“Very good, Pierre,” she said; “if any evil happens to her, if a hair of her head is injured, you and I will have seen each other for the last time; for I shall be in heaven, and you will go to hell.”
The possessed of devils whom the Church in former days used to exorcise with great pomp were not more shaken and agitated than Marche-a-Terre at this prophecy, uttered with a conviction that gave it certainty. His glance, which at first had a character of savage tenderness, counteracted by a fanaticism as powerful in his soul as love, suddenly became surly, as he felt the imperious manner of the girl he had long since chosen. Francine interpreted his silence in her own way.
“Won’t you do anything for my sake?” she said in a tone of reproach.
At these words the Chouan cast a glance at his mistress from eyes that were black as a crow’s wing.
“Are you free?” he asked in a growl that Francine alone could have understood.
“Should I be here if I were not?” she replied indignantly. “But you, what are you doing here? Still playing bandit, still roaming the country like a mad dog wanting to bite. Oh! Pierre, if you were wise, you would come with me. This beautiful young lady, who, I ought to tell you, was nursed when a baby in our home, has taken care of me. I have two hundred francs a year from a good investment. And Mademoiselle has bought me my uncle Thomas’s big house for fifteen hundred francs, and I have saved two thousand beside.”
But her smiles and the announcement of her wealth fell dead before the dogged immovability of the Chouan.
“The priests have told us to go to war,” he replied. “Every Blue we shoot earns one indulgence.”