“I will try.”
He carried the child to his horse’s side, then gave her to Carola as he sprang into the saddle; then as he stooped to her, Carola felt his bare cold hands touch hers as the little girl, not without difficulty, was lifted on to his saddle-bow.
“You know the way; you must lead,” he said.
She stood for a second, looking up at him. The glow of the fire brought out every line of his face, so fine and true and serene, and yet the face of a man who knew what he had undertaken, what was before him, for there was a kind of awe in his expression, and yet an exaltation; his lips were delicately compressed, his nostrils delicately distended, and his eyes were wild and dark. He was looking over the huddled form of the child in front of him that he held to his bosom with his right hand; his gaze went beyond Carola and beyond the flames. She thought he had forgotten she was there.
She mounted and brought her horse alongside his.
“Ah, Madame,” he murmured, with a start.
They rode together out of the light of the flames.
CHAPTER XIII
CLÉMENCE
The lantern failed, and the moonlight was often obscured, or completely blotted out by the passing sullen clouds.
Luc’s right arm was stiff about the heavy child and his left hand cold on the bridle; his very blood was chill. It seemed to him that the creeping bitterness of the night was more intense than all the hurricane snows of Bohemia. He seldom moved his head, and his body was cramped in one position with the weight of the little girl against it; but his mind had never been clearer, more alert, more active.