Mlle. de Varion turned pale, and, as if suddenly too weak to stand, sat down on a wooden bench before the inn door. Jeannotte ran to support her. "Before sunset!" she repeated, with a shudder. "Yes, mademoiselle, unless you are too ill to proceed. I fear the fatigue of this ride has been too much for you." She gave a look of relief, and replied: "I fear that it has. I shall be better able to go on to-morrow,--unless there is danger in remaining here." "There is very little danger. People crossing the mountains by way of Clochonne now use the new road, which is shorter. If, by any chance, soldiers from the Clochonne garrison should come this way and detain us as fleeing Huguenots, we could summon help,--for we are so near the hiding-place of the Sieur de la Tournoire." Again that shudder! Decidedly, in the accounts that she had received of me, I must have been represented as a very terrible personage. I smiled at thinking of the surprise that awaited her in the disclosure of the truth. It was thereupon arranged that we should stay at Godeau's inn until the next morning. Mademoiselle's portmanteaus were carried to the upper chamber, which was a mere loft, but preferable to the kitchen. Thither, after eating, she went to rest. Blaise then departed to direct the desired preparations at Maury, with orders to return to the inn before nightfall. Jeannotte and the two boys remained in the kitchen to hear the music of the two gypsies, a man and a girl. Having nothing better to do, I took my seat on the bench outside the inn and sat musing. Late in the afternoon, I heard the light step of mademoiselle on the threshold. On seeing me, she stopped, as if it were I whom she had come out to seek I rose and offered her the bench. She sat down in silence, and for a moment her eyes rested on the ground, while on her face was a look of trouble. Suddenly she lifted her glance to mine and spoke abruptly, as if forcing herself to broach a subject on which she would rather have been silent. "Monsieur," she said, "I suppose that the Sieur de la Tournoire, whom we are so soon to meet, is a very dear friend of yours!" "A very close friend," I replied, with an inward smile. "And yet he has got me into so much trouble that I might fairly consider him my enemy." "I must confess," said she, "that I have heard little of him but evil." "It is natural that the Catholics in Berry should find nothing good to say of him," I replied. "Yet it is true that he is far from perfect,--a subtle rascal, who dons disguises, and masquerades as other than he is, a leader of night-birds, and sometimes a turbulent roysterer." "I have been told," she said, "that he treacherously killed a man in Paris, and deserted from the French Guards."