"Where is your house?"
"About a quarter of a league down that road." He pointed toward the road that ran northward from the square, as my road ran northeastward. "When you are ready to go on, you can get the Paris road by a lane, without coming back to the town."
There were good reasons against my losing any time before starting for Paris. But it was well, on the other hand, for Hugues to know exactly how matters stood at the chateau. I put my reasons hastily to him, and he said he could promise me a safe hiding-place at his mill. And I could travel the faster in the end for a rest now, which I looked as if I needed,—in truth, I had slept little and badly in the hall the previous night, and the day's business had told upon me. So, perhaps most because it was pleasant to be with a trusty companion who shared my cause of anxiety, I agreed to go to his house for supper, and to set out after night-fall.
"Good!" said Hugues. "Then you had best ride ahead, Monsieur, so we are not seen together. You can leave me now as if you had been merely asking your way. If you ride slowly when you are out of the town, I shall catch up."
I did as he suggested, and he soon overtook me on the road. His house proved to be a cottage of good size built against a mill, with a small barn at one side of the yard and a stable at the other. When I had dismounted at his door, we unsaddled and unbridled my horse, so that it might pass for a new horse of his own if pursuers looked into his stable. He then called his boy and his woman-servant, and told them what to say if anybody came inquiring. We carried my saddle, bridle, and portmanteau through the cottage to the mill, and thence to a small cellar which was reached by means of a well-concealed trap-door in the mill-floor. This cellar should be my refuge in case the Count's men came there seeking me.
"I made this hiding-place," said Hugues, moving his candle about to show how well floored and walled it was, "because one could never say when Mathilde, living in that fearful chateau, might want a place to fly to. She would not leave her mistress, you know, though the Countess's other women went gladly enough when the Count sent them off. Nobody knows there is anything between Mathilde and me, Monsieur,—except the Countess. It is safer so. We have been waiting for the Count to die, so that all might be well with the Countess, for Mathilde could marry me then with easy mind."
"I hope that God will send that time soon," said I.
"But meanwhile, this present danger?" said Hugues.
We returned to the living-room of the cottage, and talked of the matter while we had supper. I told Hugues everything, misrepresenting only so far as to make it appear that the Count's jealousy was still entirely unfounded, and that he had mistaken the Countess's feelings at our confrontation. Whatever Hugues may have thought upon this last point, he made no comment thereon; but he showed the liveliest sense of the increased danger in which the Countess stood. He feared that my escape would make her position still worse, and that her hours might be already numbered. He considered there was not time for me to go to Paris and return: the Countess's rescue ought to be attempted promptly, or the attempt would be too late.
In all this, he but echoed the feeling that had come back to me with double force while I told him the situation. But there was the Countess's determination not to flee. Hugues said that as this determination must be overcome for the Countess's own sake, any pressure that could be brought to bear upon her feelings would be justifiable. Let it be urged upon her that if she persisted in waiting for death, Mathilde's life also would doubtless be sacrificed; let every argument, every persuasion be employed; let me beseech, let me reproach, let me even use imperative means if need be. Suddenly, as he talked, I saw a way by which I thought she might be moved. It was one chance, but enough to commit me to the effort.