Tiphaïne went a few steps nearer to Croquart’s body. It seemed difficult to believe that this lifeless, weltering thing had raised in her but an hour ago all the passionate hatred that great love of her home land could inspire. Now that it was mere carrion she conceived a scornful pity for the thing as she recalled the man’s arrogance, his bombast, his supreme and coarse self-adoration. Truly this was the proper rounding of such a life, to be bred a butcher, fattened with the blood of a noble province, and left a mere carcass for the crows and wolves. She turned from Croquart’s body with a sigh half of pity, half of disgust.
Tinteniac watched her from the window, his mind moved by the same reflections, the religious instinct in him pointing a moral. In the distance he had seen a figure on a horse pass through the morning mists in the meadows and vanish into the sun-touched woods.
“Our Breton has gone,” and he lifted up his shield, “I would have given half that ransom to have had a glimpse of his face.”
Tiphaïne looked at him with eyes that mused.
“Why should he have deserted us?”
“I am no reader of riddles. And our plans? What are they to be?”
“I am thinking of your wounds,” she answered.
“They are nothing. This fellow has given me new strength. Shall we still say, ‘to Josselin’?”
“Thanks, sire. I remember that I have the truth to tell.”