Denise breathed out the answer that Marpasse was expecting.
“But I cannot go! He—is there.”
Marpasse, brazen-faced, told the lie of her life.
“Messire Aymery? He is so little the worse that he was in the saddle at daybreak, and searching the woods to the west, and half the village with him.”
Denise looked into Marpasse’s eyes.
“That is the truth?”
“Heart of mine, why should I tell you a lie!”
Denise seemed to hesitate. She shrank from the sight of any familiar face that morning, and yet her heart reproached her because of Grimbald. The thought was often with her that she might have trusted him more deeply.
Marpasse, dreading to seem too eager, put in a frank plea.
“Why shun a good friend?” she said; “he would be grieved. The man is no Ursula, God forbid!”