"I shall not forget."
Her manner in this acquiescence was that of one who follows blindly where a trusted guide directs, but who takes little interest in the course or the outcome. A kind of forlorn indifference seemed to have stolen over her. But she listened to the particulars of residence and history with which I thought it wise to provide ourselves, and briefly assented to all. She then lapsed into silence, from which I could not draw her beyond the fewest words that would serve in politeness to answer my own speeches.
Meanwhile Hugues led us from the road and across the narrow wood, thence by a lane and a pasture field to the highway for Vendome and Paris. We pushed on steadily, passed through Les Roches, which was sound asleep, and, stopping only now and then to let our horses drink at some stream, at which times we listened and heard no sound upon the road, we entered Vendome soon after daylight.
"Had we better stop here for a few hours?" said I, watching the Countess and perceiving with sorrow how tired and weak she looked.
"I think it well, Monsieur," replied Hugues, his eyes dwelling where mine did.
"And yet," I said, with a thought of the horror of her being taken, "it is so few leagues from Lavardin. In such a town, too, the Count's men would visit all the inns. If we might go on to some village—some obscure inn. Could you keep up till then, Madame, do you think?"
"Oh, yes,—I think so." But her pallor of face, her weakness of voice, belied her words.
"We should be more closely observed at some smaller place than here," said Hugues. "Besides, we need not go to an inn here. There is a decent, close-mouthed woman I know, a butcher's widow, who will lodge you if her rooms are not taken. It would be best to avoid the inns and go to her house at once. As like as not, if the Count did hunt this road, he would pass through the town without guessing you were at private lodgings."
"It is the best thing we can do," said I, with a blessing upon all widows of butchers. Hugues guided us to a little street behind the church of the Trinity, and soon brought the widow's servant, and then the widow herself, to the door. Her rooms were vacant, and we took two of them, in the top story, one overlooking the street, the other a backyard wherein she agreed to let our horses stand. She promised moreover to say nothing of our presence there, and so, while Hugues led the horses through the narrow stone-paved passage, the widow showed us to our rooms. The front one being the larger and better, I left the Countess in possession of it as soon as we were alone, that she might rest until the woman brought the food I had ordered.
When breakfast was set out in the back room, and the Countess opened her door in answer to my knock, she looked so worn out and ill that I was alarmed. She had fallen asleep, she said, and my knock had wakened her. She ate little, and I could see that she was glad to go back and lie down again.