“As you will, then; only promise me this, Rex — if Simon has been captured you will return for me before you attempt anything.” The Duke smiled at Marie Lou. “Mademoiselle, you are a woman of great courage. To allow you to take such a risk for us is against every principle of my life, but we are in desperate straits. I accept the shelter that you offer with the deepest gratitude.”
“There, now you talk sense at last. Rakov may say nothing after all; he will think, perhaps, that it is only another of my madnesses. Because I live differently to them, the people here think that I am queer — if it were not that the children like me, and for the memory of my mother — I think that fifty years ago the peasants would have burnt me for a witch.”
For the first time in hours Rex laughed, his ugly, attractive face lit with its old merry smile. “I’ll say you’re a witch all right,” he murmured. “I’ve half a mind to go get wounded myself if you’d promise to take a hand healing it!”
“Monsieur is pleased to be gallant,” she said demurely. “He would be wiser to seek tidings of his friend and return unwounded.”
“Take care, Rex,” begged the Duke, “and don’t be longer than you can help.”
“I’ll be right back, and I’ll give three knocks on the door, so you’ll know it’s me. See-yer-later.” With a cheerful smile Rex went out into the night.
When De Richleau’s wound was cleaned and dressed, Marie Lou barred the cottage door, and showed him a cupboard hidden behind a curtain. It contained a collection of old clothes, but behind these was concealed a series of stout shelves, up which it was easy to climb to the loft She told him that she had hidden there many times during the evil times, when Reds, Whites and Greens had ravaged the country indiscriminately.
The rifle was taken up to the loft, also the knapsacks and De Richleau’s furs. All other traces of the travellers were disposed of in anticipation of a surprise visit; then they put out the light, that the occupant of the cottage might be presumed to be sleeping, and sat together in the darkness near the stove.
“When I heard all the shooting,” she said in a low voice, “I thought that I should never see any of you any more.”
“Surely you could not hear the fight at this distance?” he asked, surprised.