Now for two days I had been looking forward to seeing it again. That long stretch of road would do admirably for something I had in my mind. That sign-post, with the roads pointing north, south, east, and west, could there be a better place for meetings and partings?
We came to the bottom of the ascent about an hour before noon--M. de Cocheforêt, Mademoiselle, and I. We had reversed the order of yesterday, and I rode ahead. They came after me at their leisure. At the foot of the hill, however, I stopped and, letting Mademoiselle pass on, detained M. de Cocheforêt by a gesture. "Pardon me, one moment," I said. "I want to ask a favour."
He looked at me somewhat fretfully, with a gleam of wildness in his eyes that betrayed how the iron was eating into his heart. He had started after breakfast as gaily as a bridegroom, but gradually he had sunk below himself; and now he had much ado to curb his impatience. The bonhomie of last night was quite gone. "Of me?" he said. "What is it?"
"I wish to have a few words with Mademoiselle--alone," I explained.
"Alone?" he answered, frowning.
"Yes," I replied, without blenching, though his face grew dark. "For the matter of that, you can be within call all the time, if you please. But I have a reason for wishing to ride a little way with her."
"To tell her something?"
"Yes."
"Then you can tell it to me," he retorted suspiciously. "Mademoiselle, I will answer for it, has no desire to--"
"See me, or speak to me!" I said, taking him up. "I can understand that. Yet I want to speak to her."