This last to Froment. I did not gainsay her, and he let her out, and the two walked a few paces away, talking rapidly.
I followed them with my eyes; and seeing him now, detached, as it were, and solitary in that dreary landscape--a man alone and in danger--I began to feel some compunction. A moment more, and I might have repented; but a touch fell on my sleeve, and I turned with a start to find Denise leaning towards me, with her face rapt and eager.
"Monsieur," she whispered eagerly; before she could say more I seized the hand with which she had touched me, and kissed it fiercely.
"No, Monsieur, no," she whispered, drawing it from me with her face grown crimson--but her eyes still met mine frankly. "Not now. I want to speak to you, to warn you, to ask you----"
"And I, Mademoiselle," I cried in the same low tone, "want to bless you, to thank you----"
"I want to ask you to take care of yourself," she persisted, shaking her head almost petulantly at me, to silence me. "Listen! Some trap will be laid for you. My mother would not harm you, though she is angry; but that man is desperate, and we are in straits. Be careful, therefore, Monsieur, and----"
"Have no fear," I said.
"Ah, but I have fear," she answered.
And the way in which she said that, and the way in which she looked at me, and looked away again like a startled bird, filled me with happiness--with intense happiness; so that, though Madame came back at that moment, and no more passed between us, not even a look, but we had to sink back in our seats, and affect indifference, I was a different man for it. Perhaps something of this appeared in my face, for Madame, as she came up to the door, shot a suspicious glance at me, a glance almost of hatred; and from me looked keenly at her daughter. However, nothing was said except by Froment, who came up to the door and closed it, after she had entered. He raised his hat to me.
"M. le Vicomte," he said, with a little bitterness, "if a dog came to my door, as I came to you to-day, I would take him in!"