"As you say," she murmured. For such are the contradictions of a woman’s heart that all of a sudden she did not wish to go away. All thoughts of rebellion and conspiracies were unaccountably thrust into the background of her mind, and ... she did not wish to go away.... "There is no hurry," she continued timidly. "I would not like to put you to inconvenience." "Oh!" he rejoined airily, "there is no inconvenience which I would not gladly bear in order to gratify your wish." "I shall have to pack my effects...." "Jeanne will help Inez, and a few things are easily packed. Your effects shall follow in an ox-wagon; they will be two days on the way; so I pray you take what is required for your immediate needs and is easily stowed in your saddle-bow. We shall have to make an early start, if you desire to be in Brussels by nightfall." "Oh! there is no hurry," she protested. "Ah? Then in that case I could escort you as far as Alost, and send a courier thence to your father, to meet you there the next day." She bit her lip and could have cried with vexation. At the present moment she hated him for so obviously wishing to be rid of her. She had quite forgotten that she had ever wanted to go. "I shall be too tired to make an early start in the morning," she said quite piteously. "Why it is close on early morning now." She leaned a little forward in order to listen, for just then the chimes of St. Bavon rang the half-hour after midnight. She still looked a small, pale, slim ghost with one side of her exquisite face in shadow, the other but faintly illumined by the light from without. Her vexation, her indecision, were so plainly expressed in her eyes, that he must indeed have been vastly dull or vastly indifferent not to have read her thoughts. Nevertheless, he said with the same calm airiness as before: "A few hours’ rest will revive you, Madonna. And if we only go as far as Alost to-morrow, we need not start before midday." At this her pride was aroused. His indifference now amounted to insolence. With a vigorous effort she swallowed her tears, for they were very near the surface, and then she rose abruptly, with the air and manners of a queen, looking down in her turn with haughty indifference on that abominable Netherlander whom she had never hated so thoroughly as she did at this moment. "I thank you, Messire," she said coldly, "I pray you then to see that all arrangements be complete for my journey as early as may be. I would wish to be in Brussels by nightfall, and half a dozen leagues or so does not frighten me."