He glanced at her keenly a moment, and rested one hand on the prie-dieu.
“It is nothing. We crossed Hanotin’s tracks, that was all. Besides, we owed them a grudge.”
Tiphaïne was struck by his dogged air of self-restraint, and yet there was something in his voice that touched her. The long, wakeful hours of the night had changed her mood towards him. She seemed to have been given sudden insight into the heart of this strong and rebellious man, whose arm had saved her from a thing that she dared not picture.
“We each have something to forgive,” she said.
“I disobeyed you in that one thing.”
“Yes.”
“I did it that I might still have the memory of Rennes.”
She was gazing at the altar steps, as though recalling how Hanotin had held her across his knee. She shuddered a little. It was something, after all, for a man to be grim and mighty in battle.
Bertrand stood by the prie-dieu, watching her.
“Do you remember, Tiphaïne, that night when you came to us at Motte Broon?”