“Madame!”

“Who?  Who?  Had he died in the field,” she continued, her voice shaking with grief, her hands beating the parapet—­for she had turned from him—­“had he fallen where he rode last night, in the front, with his face to the foe, I had viewed him tearless, I had deemed him happy!  I had prayed dry-eyed for him who—­who spared me all these days and weeks!  Whom I robbed and he forgave me!  Whom I tempted, and he forbore me!  Ay, and who spared not once or twice him for whom he must now—­he must now—­” And unable to finish the sentence she beat her hands again and passionately on the stones.

“Heaven knows, Madame,” the minister cried vehemently, “Heaven knows, I would advise you if I could.”

“Why did he wear his corselet?” she wailed, as if she had not heard him.  “Was there no spear could reach his breast, that he must come to this?  No foe so gentle he would spare him this?  Or why did he not die with me in Paris when we waited?  In another minute death might have come and saved us this.”

With the tears running down his face he tried to comfort her.

“Man that is a shadow,” he said, “passeth away—­what matter how?  A little while, a very little while, and we shall pass!”

“With his curse upon us!” she cried.  And, shuddering, she pressed her hands to her eyes to shut out the sight her fancy pictured.

He left her for a while, hoping that in solitude she might regain control of herself.  When he returned he found her seated, and outwardly more composed; her arms resting on the parapet-wall, her eyes bent steadily on the long stretch of hard sand which ran northward from the village.  By that route her lover had many a time come to her; there she had ridden with him in the early days; and that way they had started for Paris on such a morning and at such an hour as this, with sunshine about them, and larks singing hope above the sand-dunes, and with wavelets creaming to the horses’ hoofs!

Of all which La Tribe, a stranger, knew nothing.  The rapt gaze, the unchanging attitude only confirmed his opinion of the course she would adopt.  He was thankful to find her more composed; and in fear of such a scene as had already passed between them, he stole away again.  He returned by-and-by, but with the greatest reluctance, and only because Carlat’s urgency would take no refusal.

He came this time to crave the key of the wicket, explaining that—­rather to satisfy his own conscience and the men than with any hope of success—­he proposed to go halfway along the causeway, and thence by signs invite a conference.

“It is just possible,” he added, hesitating—­he feared nothing so much as to raise hopes in her—­“that by the offer of a money ransom, Madame—­”

“Go,” she said, without turning her head.  “Offer what you please.  But”—­bitterly—­“have a care of them!  Montsoreau is very like Montereau!  Beware of the bridge!”