"I pray God! I have suffered my share."
All through that summer night they rode—resting their horses occasionally at country inns, then going on again, though slowly, and at dawn changing them for others and leaving them to rest until they should return that way. And so at last they neared Troyes, passing through the little town of Nogent, and seeing, ten miles off, the spire of the cathedral glistening in the rays of the bright sun.
"She will not know me," St. Georges had said more than once, as he thought of Dorine. "She was a babe when I lost her, now she is a child possessing speech and intelligence. May God grant it is not too late; that she is not too old yet to learn to love me!"
"Courage! mon ami, courage!" exclaimed Boussac, repeating a formula he had adopted from the first; "all must be well."
But—it was natural—as they approached their destination, the goal from which St. Georges hoped so much, his nervousness increased terribly and he began to speculate as to whether the child might not after all be dead; if, perhaps, she might not have lain in her little grave for long. "And then how will it be with me, Boussac? Oh! if she is dead how shall I reckon with the woman who possessed herself of her?"
"Courage!" again repeated the mousquetaire, "I do not believe she is dead. And if mademoiselle did seize upon her—well, she is a woman! a better nurse than the bishop's servant."
"Ah! the bishop's servant! That too has to be explained. What was he doing with her? I have wondered all these years—De Roquemaure's dying words told nothing. 'He had got her safe,' he gasped at the last. But why he? Why he! Oh! shall I ever know all?"
"Ere long, I hope, my friend," said Boussac, "ere long now."
As he spoke, they mounted the last hill that guarded the capital of Champagne and approached the summit. When there, they would be able to look down upon the old city—nay, more, from there they would scarce be a musket shot from the manoir, surrounded now by its ripening vineyards and its woods. She, the kidnapper of his child, would be in his grasp, must answer his demand!
Upon the summit of that hill still stood the gibbet on which the peasant woman's husband had swung, but the body was gone—long since, doubtless—and the gallows tree was bare. "Perhaps," said St. Georges, "the poor thing obtained him decent burial at last. I hope so." Then, seeing a peasant coming along the road, he spoke to him, and asked him what had become of the corpse that hung there four years ago? The fellow looked up at him sullenly enough and stared hard for some moments; then he said: