I said nothing.  I was stunned.  Yet I believed the story.  When I went over the facts in my mind I found that a dozen things, overlooked at the time and almost forgotten in the hurry of events, sprang up to confirm it.  M. de Pavannes’—­the other M. de Pavannes’—­suspicions had been well founded.  Worse than Bezers was she?  Ay! worse a hundred times.  As much worse as treachery ever is than violence; as the pitiless fraud of the serpent is baser than the rage of the wolf.

“I thought,” Croisette added softly, not looking at me, “when I discovered that you had gone off with her, that I should never see you again, Anne.  I gave you up for lost.  The happiest moment of my life I think was when I saw you come back.”

“Croisette,” I whispered piteously, my cheeks burning, “let us never speak of her again.”

And we never did—­for years.  But how strange is life.  She and the wicked man with whom her fate seemed bound up had just crossed our lives when their own were at the darkest.  They clashed with us, and, strangers and boys as we were, we ruined them.  I have often asked myself what would have happened to me had I met her at some earlier and less stormy period—­in the brilliance of her beauty.  And I find but one answer.  I should bitterly have rued the day.  Providence was good to me.  Such men and such women, we may believe have ceased to exist now.  They flourished in those miserable days of war and divisions, and passed away with them like the foul night-birds of the battle-field.

To return to our journey.  In the morning sunshine one could not but be cheerful, and think good things possible.  The worst trial I had came with each sunset.  For then—­we generally rode late into the evening—­Louis sought my side to talk to me of his sweetheart.  And how he would talk of her!  How many thousand messages he gave me for her!  How often he recalled old days among the hills, with each laugh and jest and incident, when we five had been as children!  Until I would wonder passionately, the tears running down my face in the darkness, how he could—­how he could talk of her in that quiet voice which betrayed no rebellion against fate, no cursing of Providence!  How he could plan for her and think of her when she should be alone!

Now I understand it.  He was still labouring under the shock of his friends’ murder.  He was still partially stunned.  Death seemed natural and familiar to him, as to one who had seen his allies and companions perish without warning or preparation.  Death had come to be normal to him, life the exception; as I have known it seem to a child brought face to face with a corpse for the first time.