Jean ran back to the settle after he had put on the wood and sat down in his place by the shepherd’s side. He smiled across at Marie Josephine with his merry black eyes. “We like the story, do we not, Little Mademoiselle?” he asked her. She sat looking down at her hands which were folded in her lap. She did not answer him or look up at him, for there were tears in her eyes and she did not want any one to see them. While Dian had been talking she had been thinking with all her might. She had begun to suspect that he was speaking of Lisle, and as he went on she became sure of it.
“There was a cowherd on the lands where the young page lived,” Dian went on. “This cowherd was sorely grieved at the trouble that had come to his master. He thought of the page night and day. He wished more than he had ever wished anything that he might find a way to rescue him, and he whispered the wish as a prayer to the sun and the stars.”
A knock broke in on the quiet earnestness of the shepherd’s voice and the next instant the door opened and Neville came inside. He was wind-blown and breathless.
“You are here, Little Mademoiselle, and that is well. The young ladies and Madame le Pont were uneasy about you. Madame le Pont requested me to say that you were to come at once.”
The shepherd stood up and reached for his cloak from the back of the settle. He was a taller man than Neville and had the look of one who had lived always in the open, close to the secrets of beasts and birds. Neville wore again his wig and his familiar house uniform of red and gold. It did not seem possible that he could ever have worn the queer, shabby disguise in which he had come back from Paris. He looked very pale and ill. No one but the shepherd knew of the dire peril through which the faithful man had passed in order to return with the message from the comtesse and to protect the little group at Les Vignes. Dian knew, and there was something he had to say to him, so he put on his cloak and went with them.
The wind shrieked eerily as Marie Josephine walked through the forest, with Neville and Dian on each side of her. Mother Barbette had wrapped her cloak about her and pulled the cape up over her curls. She walked quietly, holding Dian’s hand so that he might steady her steps over the fallen branches of trees or the sudden twists of roots here and there. Neville’s lanthorn cast a dancing light ahead of them.
Marie Josephine was thinking deeply. Could it be that she was the same laughing, mischievous girl who had run away after dinner, leaving the others in the great firelit drawing-room? She had tried to be happy because she could not believe that anything could happen to those she loved. Now, suddenly, she was awake, and because it was her nature to do things thoroughly she was very much awake indeed. She knew, as she walked back under the moonless sky toward Les Vignes, where the lights shone faintly, that she would never be the same little girl again. Dian had been speaking of Lisle. He had not said so, but she knew it. Dian felt that Lisle was in danger. There was no use in being happy or playing in the woods with Jean any longer. She must be awake. It might be that there was something she could do!
She heard the clock strike eleven that night, and then twelve. She had lain awake for three hours listening to the thin branches of walnut trees swishing and flapping against her windows. When the clock struck twelve she sat up in bed and listened. She had opened the window a little way because she loved to feel the sweet, chill wind. She heard voices quite distinctly by the side of the house. Some one spoke in a low tone, and a voice answered that she knew right away was Dian’s.
“It is right that I should be the one to go. I have left a message for the governess. Tell her not to fear. I shall reach them sometime safely.” Whether because the wind changed freakishly, or because the voices had gone on down the driveway, Marie Josephine did not hear another word. She jumped out of bed and ran to the window and, kneeling, peered out. There was no one about, and she did not hear anything now, except the moan of the forest and the wail of the wind.
She turned her head as she knelt against the window casement and there, coming toward her, was Cécile. How it happened Marie Josephine did not quite know, but the next moment she was sobbing with Cécile’s arms about her. Before she realized it she was in bed, tucked up warmly, with Cécile close beside her. She told Cécile of Dian’s story and then of the words she had just overheard, and she knew that Cécile was very excited though she spoke quietly.