Suddenly the whole probability of the case appeared to me in a flash. Regardless of the wine before me, and of the dinner I had ordered, I rose and followed him.
I had put together his reticence about Monsieur de Merri, his having been away from Montoire just four and a half days, the direction of his journey, and his errand to be done immediately on returning. He must be the messenger who had carried the lady's note to Sablé, and he was now going to report its delivery and, perhaps, Monsieur de Merri's answer. If I could dog his steps unseen, he would lead me to the lady who was in danger.
CHAPTER IV.
WHO THE LADY WAS
By the time I was in the court-yard, the messenger was walking out of the archway. By the time I was at the outer end of the archway, he was well on his way toward one of the streets that go from the square. I waited in the shelter of the archway till he had got into that street—or road, I should say, for it soon leaves the town, proceeding straight in a South-easterly direction for about half a league through the country. As soon as he was out of the square, I was after him, stepping so lightly I could scarce hear my own footfalls. He walked rapidly, and as one who does not think of turning to look behind, a fact which I observed with comfort.
If he was indeed the messenger, he must have been content with a very short rest for his horse after delivering the note to Monsieur de Merri;—must have started from Sablé as soon as, or little later than, Monsieur de Merri himself, to be in La Flèche on the same evening that gentleman arrived there, and to be out of it again before I was, as he must have been if he reached Le Lude by midnight. Perhaps he was passing through La Flèche at the very time the duel was going on; but the sum of all was, that he could not know Monsieur de Merri was killed, and this I felt to be fortunate for me.
Another thought which I had while following him along the straight white road that day, was that if the lady could command the services of this able young fellow to bear a message so far, why could she not use him directly for the saving of her life and honour? Evidently there was a reason why mere zeal and ability would not suffice. Perhaps the necessary service was one in which only a gentleman could be accepted. But I feared rather that there might be some circumstance to make Monsieur de Merri the only possible instrument; and my heart fell at this, thinking what I had done. But I hoped for the best, and did not lose sight of the young man ahead of me.
After we had walked about twenty minutes, the road crossed a bridge and rose to the gates of a chateau which had at one corner a very high old tower. In front of the chateau, the road turned off sharply to the left. A few small houses constituted such a village as one often sees huddled about the feet of great castles. A drawbridge, which I could see between the gate towers, indicated that the chateau and its immediate grounds were surrounded by a moat. The messenger did not approach the gates, nor did he follow the road to its turning. He disappeared down a lane to the right.
When I got to the lane, he had already passed out of it at the other end. I hastened through, and caught sight of him in the open fields that lay along the side wall of the chateau. Near the outer edge of the moat, grew tangled bushes, and I noticed that he kept close to these, as if to be out of sight from the chateau. At a distance ahead, skirting the rear of the chateau enclosure, stretched the green profile of what appeared to be a deep forest. It was this which my unconscious guide was approaching. I soon reached the bushes by the fosse, and used them for my own concealment in following him. When he came to the edge of the forest, at a place near a corner of the wall environing the chateau grounds, what did he do but stop before the first tree—a fine oak—and proceed to climb up it? I crouched among the bushes, and looked on.