Her hand fell away from his arm.
“Oh, you are mad!” she exclaimed, quite out of patience.
“Possibly. But I like my madness. There is a thrill in it unknown to such sanity as yours. By your leave, Aline, I think I will ride on to Gavrillac.”
“Andre, you must not! It is death to you!” In her alarm she backed her horse, and pulled it across the road to bar his way.
It was almost completely night by now; but from behind the wrack of clouds overhead a crescent moon sailed out to alleviate the darkness.
“Come, now,” she enjoined him. “Be reasonable. Do as I bid you. See, there is a carriage coming up behind you. Do not let us be found here together thus.”
He made up his mind quickly. He was not the man to be actuated by false heroics about dying, and he had no fancy whatever for the gallows of M. de Lesdiguieres’ providing. The immediate task that he had set himself might be accomplished. He had made heard—and ringingly—the voice that M. de La Tour d’Azyr imagined he had silenced. But he was very far from having done with life.
“Aline, on one condition only.”
“And that?”
“That you swear to me you will never seek the aid of M. de La Tour d’Azyr on my behalf.”