The ascent was steep and long and toilsome, and a dozen times as we climbed out of the valley we had to halt to breathe the cattle; a dozen times I looked back at the grey mountain inn lying on the desolate grey plateau at our feet. Always I found the Baron looking up at us, stern and gaunt and motionless as the house before which he stood. And I shivered.
CHAPTER XVII.
[FROMENT OF NÎMES.]
This encounter served neither to raise my spirits nor to remove the apprehensions with which I looked forward to our arrival in places more populous; places where suspicion, once roused, might be less easily allayed. True, Géol had not betrayed me, but he might have his reasons for that; nor did the fact any the more reconcile me to having on our trail this grim stalking-horse in whose person a fanaticism I had deemed dead lurked behind modern doctrines, and sought under the cloak of a new party to avenge old injuries. The barren slopes and rugged peaks that rose above us, as we plodded toilsomely onward, the windswept passes over which the horses scarce dragged the empty carriage, the melancholy fields of snow that lay to right and left, all tended to deepen the impression made on my mind; so that feeling him one with his native hills, I longed to escape from them, I longed to be clear of this desolation and to see before me the sunshine and olive slopes sweep down to the southern sea.
Yet even here there was a counterpoise. The peril which had startled me had not been lost on Madame St. Alais; it had sensibly lowered her tone, and damped the triumph with which she had been disposed to treat me. She was more quiet; and sitting in her place, or walking beside the labouring carriage, as it slowly wound its way round shoulders, or wearily climbed long lacets, she left me to myself. Nay, it did not escape me that distance, far from relieving, seemed to aggravate her anxiety; so that the farther we left the uncouth Baron behind, the more restless she grew, the more keenly she scanned the road behind us, and the less regard she paid to me.
This left me at liberty to use my eyes as I would; and I remember to this day that hour spent under the shoulder of Mont Aigoual. Mademoiselle, worn out by days and nights of exertion, had fallen asleep in her corner, and shaken by the jolting of the coach had let the cloak slip from her face. A faint flush warmed her cheeks, as if even in sleep she felt my eyes upon her; and though a tear presently stole from under her long lashes, a smile almost naïve--a smile that remained while the tear passed--seemed to say that the joys of that strange day surpassed the pains, and that in her sleep Mademoiselle found nothing to regret. God, how I watched that smile! How I hoped that it was for me, how I prayed for her! Never before had it been my happiness to gaze on her uncontrolled, as I did now; to trace the shadow where the first tendrils of her hair stole up from the smooth, white forehead, to learn the soft curves of lips and chin, and the dainty ear half-hidden; to gaze at the blue-veined eyelids half in fear, half in the hope that they might rise and discover me!
Denise, my Denise! I breathed the word softly, in my heart, and was happy. In spite of all--the cold, the journey, Géol, Madame--I was happy. And then in a moment I fell to earth, as I heard a voice say clearly, "Is that he?"
It was Madame's voice, and I turned to her. I was relieved to find that she was not looking my way, but was on her feet, gazing back the way we had come. And in a moment, whether she gave an order or the driver halted on his own motion, the carriage came to a stand; in a mountain pass, where rocks lay huddled on either side.
"What is it?" I said in wonder.
She did not answer, but on the silence of the road and the mountains rose the thin strain of a whistled air. The air was "O Richard, O mon Roi!" In that solitude of rock and fell, it piped high and thin, and had a weird startling effect. I thrust out my head on the other side, and saw a man walking after us at his leisure; as if we had passed him, and then stood to wait for him. He was tall and stout, wore boots and a common-looking cloak; but for all that he had not the air of a man of the country.