She did not speak.
"And there, I think, I can help you. If you will stray from the party, I will meet you and destroy the letter. That done--and would God it were done already--I will take to flight as best I can, and you will raise the alarm and say that I robbed you of it! And if you tear your dress----"
"No," she said.
He looked a question.
"No!" she repeated in a low voice. "If I betray him I will not lie to him! And no other shall pay the price! If I ruin him it shall be between him and me, and no other shall have part in it!"
He shook his head. "I do not know," he murmured, "what he may do to you!"
"Nor I," she said proudly. "That will be for him."
* * * * *
Curious eyes had watched the two as they climbed the hill. For the path ran up the slope to the gap which served for gate, much as the path leads up to the Castle Beautiful in old prints of the Pilgrim's journey; and Madame St. Lo had marked the first halt and the second, and, noting every gesture, had lost nothing of the interview save the words. But until the two, after pausing a moment, passed out of sight she made no sign. Then she laughed. And as Count Hannibal, at whom the laugh was aimed, did not heed her, she laughed again. And she hummed the line of Ronsard.
Still he would not be roused, and, piqued, she had recourse to words. "I wonder what you would do," she said, "if the old lover followed us, and she went off with him!"