"She would not go," he answered coldly, and without looking up.
"But if he rode off with her?"
"She would come back on her feet!"
Madame St. Lo's prudence was not proof against that. She had the woman's inclination to hide a woman's secret; and she had not intended, when she laughed, to do more than play with the formidable man with whom so few dared to play. Now, stung by his tone and his assurance, she must needs show him that his trustfulness had no base. And, as so often happens in the circumstances, she went a little farther than the facts bore her. "Any way, he has followed us so far!" she cried viciously.
"M. de Tignonville?"
"Yes. I saw him this morning while you were bathing. She left me and went into the little coppice. He came down the other side of the brook, stooping and running, and went to join her."
"How did he cross the brook?"
Madame St. Lo blushed. "Old Badelon was there, gathering simples," she said. "He scared him. And he crawled away."
"Then he did not cross?"
"No. I did not say he did!"