“Then offer none, Monsieur,” I answered, taking his proffered hand. “Moreover, time presses and we have a possible pursuit to baffle. So to horse, Monsieurs.”
I assisted Mademoiselle to mount, and she passively suffered me to do her this office, having no word for me, and keeping her face averted from my earnest gaze.
I sighed as I turned to mount the horse Michelot held for me; but methinks 't was more a sigh of satisfaction than of pain.
. . . . . . . .
All that night we travelled and all next day until Tours was reached towards evening. There we halted for a sorely needed rest and for fresh horses.
Three days later we arrived at Nantes, and a week from the night of the Chevalier's rescue we took ship from that port to Santander.
That same evening, as I leaned upon the taffrail watching the distant coast line of my beloved France, whose soil meseemed I was not like to tread again for years, Yvonne came softly up behind me.
“Monsieur,” she said in a voice that trembled somewhat, “I have, indeed, misjudged you. The shame of it has made me hold aloof from you since we left Blois. I cannot tell you, Monsieur, how deep that shame has been, or with what sorrow I have been beset for the words I uttered at Canaples. Had I but paused to think—”
“Nay, nay, Mademoiselle, 't was all my fault, I swear. I left you overlong the dupe of appearances.”
“But I should not have believed them so easily. Say that I am forgiven, Monsieur,” she pleaded; “tell me what reparation I can make.”