“But he is hard?” the Countess murmured in a low voice, as she regained her companion’s side.

“Hard?” Madame St. Lo rejoined with a gesture of pride.  “Ay, hard as the stones in my jewelled ring!  Hard as flint, or the nether millstone—­to his enemies!  But to women?  Bah!  Who ever heard that he hurt a woman?”

“Why, then, is he so feared?” the Countess asked, her eyes on the subject of their discussion—­a solitary figure riding some fifty paces in front of them.

“Because he counts no cost!” her companion answered.  “Because he killed Savillon in the court of the Louvre, though he knew his life the forfeit.  He would have paid the forfeit too, or lost his right hand, if Monsieur, for his brother the Marshal’s sake, had not intervened.  But Savillon had whipped his dog, you see.  Then he killed the Chevalier de Millaud, but ’twas in fair fight, in the snow, in their shirts.  For that, Millaud’s son lay in wait for him with two, in the passage under the Chatelet; but Hannibal wounded one, and the others saved themselves.  Undoubtedly he is feared!” she added with the same note of pride in her voice.

The two who talked, rode at the rear of the little company which had left Paris at daybreak two days before, by the Porte St. Jacques.  Moving steadily south-westward by the lesser roads and bridle-tracks—­for Count Hannibal seemed averse from the great road—­they had lain the second night in a village three leagues from Bonneval.  A journey of two days on fresh horses is apt to change scenery and eye alike; but seldom has an alteration—­in themselves and all about them—­as great as that which blessed this little company, been wrought in so short a time.  From the stifling wynds and evil-smelling lanes of Paris, they had passed to the green uplands, the breezy woods and babbling streams of the upper Orleannais; from sights and sounds the most appalling, to the solitude of the sandy heath, haunt of the great bustard, or the sunshine of the hillside, vibrating with the songs of larks; from an atmosphere of terror and gloom to the freedom of God’s earth and sky.  Numerous enough—­they numbered a score of armed men—­to defy the lawless bands which had their lairs in the huge forest of Orleans, they halted where they pleased:  at mid-day under a grove of chestnut-trees, or among the willows beside a brook; at night, if they willed it, under God’s heaven.  Far, not only from Paris, but from the great road, with its gibbets and pillories—­the great road which at that date ran through a waste, no peasant living willingly within sight of it—­they rode in the morning and in the evening, resting in the heat of the day.  And though they had left Paris with much talk of haste, they rode more at leisure with every league.

For whatever Tavannes’ motive, it was plain that he was in no hurry to reach his destination.  Nor for that matter were any of his company.  Madame St. Lo, who had seized the opportunity of escaping from the capital under her cousin’s escort, was in an ill-humour with cities, and declaimed much on the joys of a cell in the woods.  For the time the coarsest nature and the dullest rider had had enough of alarums and conflicts.