De Roberval was only stunned, and might safely be left to Bastienne's skill. It was otherwise with Claude. The wound was a severe one, as Charles instantly recognised.
"Pardon me," he said to Marie, who, less self-controlled than Marguerite, had given way, once the crisis had passed, and was weeping hysterically, "pardon me, Mademoiselle, but I must lift him out of the heat and dust."
With tender hands he raised his comrade, and carried him into the shade. He was a skilled surgeon—taught by frequent experience—and with help from the women soon had the wound bandaged. In the meantime Roberval had recovered from his swoon, and was rubbing his eyes with amazement at the strange turn events had taken.
"How came you here?" exclaimed he to La Pommeraye.
"My evil genius prompted me to come to the aid of an ungrateful nobleman," replied Charles, laughingly. "But it was just as well for you that I did. However, it was a grand fight; and could I only have one like it every day in France, you would not get me to go to Canada. But I will not equivocate, Sieur," he added in a lower voice, drawing Roberval a little aside, "I came here, as no doubt did De Pontbriand, who was, I believe, in Paris yesterday, to accompany you on your way to Picardy. Why, you know best, but we cannot speak of it now."
De Roberval scowled, and then exclaimed with enthusiasm:
"You are a noble fellow! There were five against us when I fell, and now your bloody sword tells a heroic tale. But here, Etienne," and he turned to his only surviving retainer, who had stood all this time staring stupidly at La Pommeraye as if he had been a god suddenly descended from the sky, "look to the wounded, and you, Bastienne, help him. Are all my brave fellows dead? See what can be done, and then ride like the wind to the inn, five leagues ahead of us, and fetch men to bury the dead and bear the wounded home. But what is this? De Pontbriand wounded?"
Claude was still unconscious. He was borne to the inn on a rude litter of boughs, and there La Pommeraye watched and tended him till he was out of danger. But he was still too weak to be moved, and with the wretched accommodation and attendance which the inn afforded, his recovery bade fair to be slow. Seeing this, De Roberval had him removed to his castle, which was but a few leagues distant, and there Charles, who was not included in the invitation, was reluctantly obliged to leave his friend and return to St Malo alone. He would have been much more reluctant had not the tears which Marie had shed, as he imagined, over Claude's body, convinced him still more firmly that she was the object of his affection.
And so it happened that Claude spent a large part of the winter in Picardy, watched over and waited upon, as his strength slowly returned, by the fair hands of Marguerite de Roberval and her vivacious friend and companion, Marie de Vignan.