We now took the road across the Charlemagne moor, where the rain began again. Half-way across I heard the barking of Arabella’s dog; a horse came suddenly from beneath a clump of oaks, jumped the ditch which owners of property dig around their cleared lands when they consider them suitable for cultivation, and carried Lady Dudley to the moor to meet the carriage.
“What pleasure to meet a love thus if it can be done without sin,” said Henriette.
The barking of the dog had told Lady Dudley that I was in the carriage. She thought, no doubt, that I had brought it to meet her on account of the rain. When we reached the spot where she was waiting, she urged her horse to the side of the road with the equestrian dexterity for which she was famous, and which to Henriette seemed marvellous.
“Amedee,” she said, and the name in her English pronunciation had a fairy-like charm.
“He is here, madame,” said the countess, looking at the fantastic creature plainly visible in the moonlight, whose impatient face was oddly swathed in locks of hair now out of curl.
You know with what swiftness two women examine each other. The Englishwoman recognized her rival, and was gloriously English; she gave us a look full of insular contempt, and disappeared in the underbrush with the rapidity of an arrow.
“Drive on quickly to Clochegourde,” cried the countess, to whom that cutting look was like the blow of an axe upon her heart.
The coachman turned to get upon the road to Chinon which was better than that to Sache. As the carriage again approached the moor we heard the furious galloping of Arabella’s horse and the steps of her dog. All three were skirting the wood behind the bushes.
“She is going; you will lose her forever,” said Henriette.
“Let her go,” I answered, “and without a regret.”