The straight road running down between lines of poplars, the descending coach, lurching and jolting as it went, the faces of the grinning lackeys as they looked back at me through the dust--I well remember them all. They form a picture strangely vivid and distinct in that gallery where so many more important have faded into nothingness. I was hot, angry, vexed with myself; conscious that I had trespassed beyond the becoming, and that I more than deserved the repulse I had suffered. But through all ran a thread of a new feeling--a quite new feeling. Mademoiselle's face moved before my eyes--showing through the dust; her eyes full of dainty surprise, or disdain as delicate, accompanied me as I rode. I thought of her, not of Buton or Doury, the Committee or the Curé, the heat or the dull road. I ceased to speculate except on the chances of a peasant rising. That, that alone assumed a new and more formidable aspect; and became in a moment imminent and probable. The sight of Mademoiselle's childish face had given a reality to Buton's warnings, which all the Curé's hints had failed to impart to them. So much did the thought now harass me, that to escape it I shook up my horse, and cantered on, Gil and André following, and wondering, doubtless, why I did not turn. But, wholly taken up with the horrid visions which the blacksmith's words had called up, I took no heed of time until I awoke to find myself more than half-way on the road to Cahors, which lies three leagues and a mile from Saux. Then I drew rein and stood in the road, in a fit of excitement and indecision. Within the half-hour I might be at Madame St. Alais' door in Cahors, and, whatever happened then, I should have no need to reproach myself. Or in a little more I might be at home, ingloriously safe. Which was it to be? The moment, though I did not know it, was fateful. On the one hand, Mademoiselle's face, her beauty, her innocence, her helplessness, pleaded with me strangely, and dragged me on to give the warning. On the other, my pride urged me to return, and avoid such a reception as I had every reason to expect. In the end I went on. In less than half an hour I had crossed the Valaridré bridge. Yet it must not be supposed that I decided without doubt, or went forward without misgiving. The taunts and sneers to which Madame had treated me were too recent for that; and a dozen times pride and resentment almost checked my steps, and I turned and went home again. On each occasion, however, the ugly faces and brutish eyes I had seen in the village rose before me; I remembered the hatred in which Gargouf, the St. Alais' steward, was held; I pictured the horrors that might be enacted before help could come from Cahors; and I went on.