She looked out over the tranquil scene with an anxious heart. What had happened yonder in that murky night? Who had fallen? She could see soldiers on the distant highroad, and now and then a train of wagons moving slowly in the direction of the St. Hippolyte road, but these things told her no more than the flames of the night before. Cavalier had been repulsed, no doubt, but how many had fallen? She could not tell, and her heart throbbed and her hands trembled as she busied herself with the morning tasks. She and her grandmother sat down as usual to breakfast, but she could not eat; she quietly fed Truffe with her meal. Madame de St. Cyr herself scarcely touched anything, and Babet removed the dishes with a gloomy face. There was no conversation, there could not be while the terror of the night was upon them, and d’Aguesseau’s vacant chair seemed to mock them.
Once during the day Madame de St. Cyr let her knitting fall in her lap and looked at Rosaline with tears in her eyes.
“Alas!� she said quietly, “I fear I shall never see him again—and he was a brave man. But for me he would have gone long ago.�
Her granddaughter looked at her strangely. “Did you urge him to stay here?� she asked.
“I prayed him to be near us,� the old woman replied. “I felt that I might go, and there would be no one to help you. Père Ambroise would be all on M. de Baudri’s side.�
“And you told M. d’Aguesseau that?� exclaimed Rosaline, her face flushing.
“Something like it, yes,� Madame de St. Cyr rejoined sadly; “but the call came and he obeyed it. May the bon Dieu protect him and us.�
Rosaline made no reply, but went out of the room and up the stairs to her own, where she knelt in the window recess, her head on her arms. This, then, was the key to all that she had not understood. He had stayed to protect them, to serve them, and but for that might perhaps have been in England, and her grandmother had demanded this return for her friendship. Rosaline’s face burned; she did not look up, even when Truffe came in search of her and thrust her head into her mistress’s lap.
Presently, however, she heard a horse stop at the gate, and peeping cautiously through her screen of ivy, saw M. de Baudri, resplendent in gold lace, coming up to the house. An ill-enough omen at such a time, she thought, and remained at her post, refusing to go down when Babet was sent for her. She heard his voice, smooth and pleasant, in the room below, and after a while she saw him go away again, sitting very erect in his saddle, the picture of a soldier. After his departure she found Madame de St. Cyr sad and nervous. He had told her of the skirmish with Cavalier, speaking of the affair with contempt. The dragoons had beaten off the Camisards, killed twenty and taken sixteen wounded prisoners. He had come to press his suit again and to covertly threaten Madame de St. Cyr. The old woman did not tell all to Rosaline; she dared not. But the girl read much in the anxious eyes that followed her as she moved about, waiting on her grandmother, for she had sent Babet to Nîmes, to learn from Charlot, if possible, the names of the prisoners, the list of the dead. It would be an infinitely difficult task to learn this without suspicion; but if any one could help them, the little cobbler could, and he was known to be of the king’s religion.
Never did a day drag more wearily, but at last the sun descended toward the west, the shadows lengthened, and Rosaline’s doves came cooing to their rest. Babet had not returned yet from Nîmes. Madame de St. Cyr had her supper, served by her granddaughter, and then Rosaline went out with Truffe. She walked slowly through the garden, where the autumn had already laid its fingers, and then she passed out into the grove of mulberry trees, where the path led to the old windmill. The sun had set, and the clouds were red and purple overhead, and between them were great rifts of pale blue. The mulberry leaves rustled softly; but save for that it was still. The air was chill, and the openings between the trees made broad avenues of light and shade.