The four who looked to the door of the Duke's hut, and waited for the news, were not relieved as quickly as they expected. When men return with no news they are apt to forget that others are less wise than themselves; and where, with something to impart, they had flown to relieve the anxious, they are prone to forget that the negative has its value for those who are in suspense.

Hence some minutes elapsed before Roger presented himself. And when he came and they cried breathlessly, "Well, what news?" his answer was a look of reproach.

"Should I not have come at once if there had been any?" he said. "Alas, there is none."

"But you must have some!" they cried.

"Nothing," he answered, almost sullenly. "All we know is that they quarrelled over their prisoners. The hill above the ford is a shambles."

The Vicomte repressed the first movement of horror. "Above the ford?" he said. "How came they there?"

Roger shrugged his shoulders. "We don't know," he said. And then reading a dreadful question in his sister's eyes, "No, there is no sign of them," he continued. "We crossed to the old town on the hill, but found it locked and barred. The brutes mopped and mowed at us from the wall, but we could get no word of Christian speech from them. They seemed to be in terror of us--which looks ill. But we had no ladders and no force sufficient to storm it, and the Bat sent me back with ten spears to make you safe here while he rode on with Charles towards Villeneuve."

"Villeneuve?" the Vicomte asked, raising his eyebrows. "Why?"

"There were tracks of a large body of horsemen moving in that direction. The Bat hopes that some of the wretches quarrelled with the others, and carried off the prisoners, and are holding them safe--with an eye to their own necks."

"God grant it!" Odette muttered in a low tone, and with so much feeling that all looked at her in wonder. Nor had the prayer passed her lips many seconds before it was answered. The sound of voices drew their looks to the door, a shadow fell across the threshold, the substance followed. As the little Countess sprang forward with a shriek of joy and the Abbess dropped back in speechless emotion, Bonne stood before them.

"He has granted her prayer," the Duke muttered in astonishment. "Laus Deo!" While Roger, scarcely less surprised than if a ghost had appeared before them, stared at his sister with all his eyes.

She barely looked at them. "I am tired," she said. "Bear with me a moment. Let me sit down." Then, as if she were not content with the surprise which her words caused, "Don't touch me!" she continued, recoiling before the Countess's approach. "Wait until you have heard all. You have little cause for joy. Wait!"

The Vicomte thought his worst fears justified. "But, my child," he faltered, "is that all you have to say to us?" And to the others, in a lower voice, "She is distraught! She is beside herself. Can those wretches----"

"I escaped them," she replied, in the same dull tones. "They have done me no harm. Let me rest a minute before I tell you."

Roger stayed the inquiry after the Lieutenant which was on his lips. It was evident to him and to all that something serious had happened: that the girl before them was not the girl who had ridden away yesterday with so brave a heart. But, freed from that fear of the worst which the Vicomte had entertained, they knew not what to think. Some signs of shock, some evidences of such an experience as she had passed through, were natural; but the reaction should have cast her into their arms, not withheld her--should have flung her weeping on her sister's shoulder, not frozen her in this strange apathy.

The Abbess, indeed, who had recovered from the paroxysm of gratitude into which Bonne's return had cast her, eyed her sister with the shadow of a terror. Conscience, which makes cowards of us all, suggested to her an explanation of her sister's condition, adequate and more than adequate. A secret alarm kept her silent therefore: while the young Countess, painfully aware that she had escaped all that Bonne had suffered, sank under new remorse. For the others, they did not know what to think: and stealthily reading one another's eyes, felt doubts that they dared not acknowledge. Was it possible, notwithstanding her denial, that she had suffered ill-treatment?

"Perhaps it were better," the Duke muttered, "if we left mademoiselle in the care of her sister?"

But low as he spoke, Bonne heard. She raised her head wearily. "This does not lie with her," she said.

The Abbess breathed more freely. The colour came back to her cheeks. She sat upright, relieved from the secret fear that had oppressed her. "With whom, then, child?" she asked in her natural voice. "And why this mystery? But we--have forgotten"--her voice faltered, "we have forgotten," she repeated hardily, "M. des Ageaux. Is he safe?"

"It is of him I am going to speak," Bonne replied heavily.

"He has not--he has not fallen."

"He is alive."

"Thank Heaven for that!" Roger cried with heartiness, his eyes sparkling. "Has he gone on with Charles and the Bat?"

"No."

"Then where is he?" She did not answer, and, startled, Roger looked at her, the others looked at her. All waited for the reply.

"He is in the Captain of Vlaye's hands," she said slowly. And a gentle spasm, the beginning of weeping which did not follow, convulsed her features. "He saved me," she continued in trembling tones, "from the peasants, only to fall into M. de Vlaye's hands."

"Well, that was better!" Roger answered.

Her lips quivered, but she did not reply. Perhaps she was afraid of losing that control over herself which it had cost her much to compass.

But the Vicomte's patience, never great, was at an end. He saw that this was going to prove a troublesome matter. Hence his sudden querulousness. "Come, come, girl," he said petulantly. "Tell us what has happened, and no nonsense! Come, an end, I say! Tell us what has happened from the beginning, and let us have no mysteries!"

She began. In a low voice, and with the same tokens of repressed feeling, she detailed what had happened from the moment of the invasion of her hut by the peasants to the release of des Ageaux and the struggle in the river-bed.

"He owes us a life there," the Vicomte exclaimed, while Roger's eyes beamed with pride.

She paid no heed to her father's interjection, but continued the story of the succeeding events--the assault on the mill, and the arrival of Vlaye and his men.

"Who in truth and fact saved your lives then," Roger said. "I forgive him much for that! It is the best thing I have heard of him."

"He saved my life," Bonne replied, with a faint but perceptible shudder. She kept her eyes down as if she dared not meet their looks.

"But the Lieutenant's too," the Vicomte objected. "You told us that he was alive."

"He is alive," she murmured. And the trembling began to overpower her. "Still alive."

"Then----"

"But to-morrow at sunrise--" her voice shook with the pent-up misery, the long-repressed pain of her three hours' ride from Vlaye--"to-morrow at sunrise, he--he must die!"

"What?"

The word came from one who so far had been silent. And the Duke rising from his place by the door stood upright, supporting his weakened form against the wall of the hut. "What?" he repeated in a voice that in spite of his weakness rang clear and loud with anger. "He will not dare!"

"M. de Vlaye?" the Vicomte muttered in a discomfited tone, "I am sure--I am sure he will not--dream of such a thing. Certainly not!"

"M. de Vlaye says that if--if----" Bonne paused as if she could not force her pallid lips to utter the words--"he says that at sunrise to-morrow he will hang him as the Lieutenant last week hung one of his men."

"For murder! Clear proved murder!" Roger cried in an agitated voice. "Before witnesses!"

"Then by my salvation I will hang him!" Joyeuse retorted in a voice which shook with rage; and one of those frantic, blasphemous passions to which all of his race were subject overcame him. "I will hang him high as Haman, and like a dog as he is!" He snatched a glove from a peg on the wall beside him, and flung it down with violence. "Give him that, the miserable upstart!" he shrieked, "and tell him that as surely as he keeps his word, I, Henry of Joyeuse, who for every spear he boasts can set down ten to that, will hang him though God and all His saints stand between! Give it him! Give it him! On foot or on horse, in mail or in shirt, alone or by fours, I am his and will drag his filthy life from him! Go!" he continued, turning, his eyes suffused with rage, on Roger. "Or bid them bring me my horse and arms! I will to him now, now, and pluck his beard! I----"

"My lord, my lord," Roger remonstrated. "You are not fit."

Joyeuse sank back exhausted on his stool. "For him and such as he more than fit," he muttered. "More than fit--coward as he is!" But his tone and evident weakness gave him the lie. He looked feebly at his hand, opening and closing it under his eyes. "Well, let him wait," he said. "Let him wait awhile. But if he does this, I will kill him as surely as I sit here!"

"Ay, to be sure!" the Vicomte chimed in. "But unless I mistake, my lord, we are on a false scent. There was something of a condition unless I am in error. This silly girl, who is more moved than is needful, said--if, if--that M. de Vlaye would hang him, unless---- What was it, child, you meant?"

She did not answer.

It was Roger whose wits saved her the necessity. His eyes were sharpened by affection; he knew what had gone before. He guessed that which held her tongue.

"We must give up the Countess!" he cried in generous scorn. "That is his condition. I guess it!"

Bonne bowed her head. She had felt that to state the condition to the helpless, terrified girl at whose expense it must be performed was a shame to her; that to state it as if she craved its performance, expected its performance, looked for its performance, was a thing still baser, a thing dishonouring to her family, not worthy a Villeneuve--a thing that must smirch them all and rob them of the only thing left to them, their good name.

Yet if she did not speak, if she did not make it known? If she did not do this for him who loved her and whom she loved? If he perished because she was too proud to crave his life, because she feared lest her cloak be stained ever so little? That, too, was--she could not face that.

She was between the hammer and the anvil. The question, what she should do, ............