“Payment?” she cried. “In worthless assignats that nobody will take from me. I know the ways of you.”
“Not in assignats,” La Boulaye promised her, “but in coin.”
And having mollified her somewhat with that assurance, he proceeded to urge her to admit them. Yonder was a shed where the horses could be stabled for the night. But still the woman demurred.
“I lack the room,” she said, with some firmness.
“But at least,” put in Garin, “you could house the Citizen here. He has been hurt, and he is scarcely able to stand. Come, woman, if you will consent to that, we others can lie with the horses in the shed.”
This in the end they gained by renewed promises of good payment. She brewed a broth for them, and for La Boulaye she found a suit of her absent husband's clothes, whilst his own wet garments were spread to dry before the fire. Some brandy, too, she found and brought him, and the draught did much to restore him.
When they had supped, Garin and the troopers withdrew to the outhouse, leaving La Boulaye in sole possession of the cottage hearth. And there, in a suit of the absent farmer's grey homespun, his legs encased in coarse woollen stockings and sabots upon his feet, sat the young Deputy alone with his unpleasant thoughts. The woman had brought him a pipe, and, although the habit was foreign to him as a rule, he had lighted it and found the smoking somewhat soothing. Ruefully he passed his hand across his bandaged brow, and in pondering over all that had taken place since yesternight at Boisvert, his cheeks grew flushed at once with anger and with shame.
“To have been so duped!”
And now—his mind growing clearer as he recovered in vigour—it occurred to him that by to-morrow it would be too late to give pursuit. Once she crossed the Sambre at Liege, or elsewhere, who could tell him by what road she would elect to continue her journey? He had not sufficient men at his disposal to send out parties along each of the possible roads. That her ultimate destination was Treves he knew. But once there she was beyond his reach, at safety from the talons of the French Republic.
He sat on and thought, what time his brows came closer together and his teeth fastened viciously upon the stem of the pipe. By the table sat the woman, knitting industriously, and ever and anon glancing inquiry at her stern, thoughtful guest, and the click of her needles was the only sound that disturbed the stillness of the room. Outside the wind was wailing like the damned, and the rain which had recommenced with new vigour, rattled noisily upon the panes.