"Ah," Valentine continued, when John had told her how she was safe in Provence, "that is no great way. I shall go and soon return. Then to Madrid is farther, but easier. But if I suffer--what I must suffer--you can well abide here a little season. The hope--the future is with you. For me there is neither--save to do the greatest thing for you that ever woman did for man! That shall be my revenge." CHAPTER XLV. VALENTINE FINDS CLAIRE WORTHY The mornings are fair--yes, very sweet and very clear at the Mas of the Mountain well-nigh all the year round. However hot the day, however mosquito-tormented the nights for those who do not protect themselves, the morn is ever fresh, with deep draughts of air cool as long-cellared wine, and everywhere the scent of springy, low-growing plants--the thyme, the romarin, the juniper--making an undergrowth which supports the foot of the wanderer, and carries him on league after league almost without his knowledge. There was great peace on the Valley of the Rhone. It was at peace even from the drive of the eternal mistral, which, from horizon to horizon, turns all things greyish-white, the trees and herbage heavy with dust, and the heavens hiding themselves away under a dry steely pall. "Avenio ventoso, Si non ventoso, venenoso," muttered the Professor, as he looked at the black mass to the north, which was the Palace of the Popes. "But I thank God it is windy, this Rhone Valley of ours, with its one great, sweeping, cleansing wind, so that no poison can lurk anywhere." He had a book in his hand, and he was looking abroad over the wide valley between the grey ridges of the Mountain of Barbentane and the little splintered peaks of the Alpilles. As on the landscape, great peace was upon the Professor. But all suddenly, without noise of approach, Jean-aux-Choux stood before him--changed, indeed, from him who had been called "The Fool of the Three Henries." The fire of a strange passion glowed in his eye. His great figure was hollowed and ghastly. His regard seemed to burn like a torch that smokes. On the back of his huge hand the muscles stood out like whipcords. His arms, bare beneath his shepherd's cape, were burned to brick colour. "Jean-aux-Choux!" cried the Professor, clapping his hands, "come and see my mother--how content she will be." The ex-fool made a sign of negation. "No, I cannot enter," he said; "there is a woman down in the valley there who would see Claire Agnew. She hath somewhat to say to her, which it concerns her greatly to know." "Who is the woman?" demanded the Professor. "I will vouch for her," said Jean-aux-Choux; "her name is nothing to you or to any man." "But Claire Agnew's name and life concern me greatly," said the Professor hotly. "Had it been otherwise, I should even now have been in my class-room with my students at the Sorbonne!" "In your grave more like--with Catherine and Guise and Henry of Valois!"