An instant later the door was dragged open, and La Boulaye stood bowing in the rain with mock ceremoniousness and a very contemptuous smile on his stern mouth. He had dismounted, and flung the reins of his horse over the bough of a tree by the roadside. The Marquise shuddered at sight of him, and sought to shrink farther back into the cushions of the carriage.
"Citoyenne," he was saying, very bitterly, "when I made my compact with you yesternight, I did not reckon upon being compelled to ride after you in this fashion. I have some knowledge of the ways of your people, of their full words and empty deeds; but you I was fool enough to trust. By experience we learn. I must ask you to alight, Citoyenne."
"To what purpose, Monsieur?" she asked, in a voice which she strove to render cold and steady.
"To the purpose that your part of the bargain be carried out. Your mother and your treasure were to find their way into Prussia upon condition that you return with me to France."
"It was a bargain of coercion, Monsieur," she answered attempting to brazen it out. "I was a woman in a desperate situation."
"Surely your memory is at fault, Citoyenne," he answered, with a politeness that was in itself a mockery.
"Your situation was so little desperate that I had offered to effect the rescue both of your mother and yourself without asking any guerdon. Your miserable treasure alone it was that had to be sacrificed. You will recall that the bargain was of your own proposing."
There was a pause, during which he stood waiting for her reply.
Her blue eyes made an attempt to meet his steady gaze, but failed.
Her bosom rose and fell in the intensity of her agitation.
"I was a woman distraught, Monsieur. Surely you will not hold me to words uttered in an hour of madness. It was a bargain I had no right to make, for I am no longer free to dispose of myself. I am betrothed to the Vicomte Anatole d'Ombreval. The contract has already been signed, and the Vicomte will be meeting us at Treves."
It was as if she had struck him, and amazement left him silent a moment. In a dim, subconscious way he seemed to notice that the name she mentioned was that of the man he was bidden to arrest.
Then, with an oath:
"I care naught for that," he cried. "As God lives, you shall fulfil your word to me."
"Monsieur, I refuse," she answered, with finality. "Let me request you to close the door and suffer us to proceed."
"Your mother and your treasure may proceed - it was thus we bargained. But you shall come with me. I will be no girl's dupe, no woman's fool, Citoyenne."
When he said that he uttered the full truth. There was no love in his voice or in his heart at that moment. Than desire of her nothing was further from his mind. It was his pride that was up in arms, his wounded dignity that cried out to him to avenge himself upon her, and to punish her for having no miserably duped him. That she was unwilling to go with him only served to increase his purpose of taking her, since the more unwilling she was the more would she be punished.
"Citoyenne, I am waiting for you to alight," he said peremptorily.
"Monsieur, I am very well as I am," she answered him, and leaning slightly from the coach - "Drive on, Blaise," she commanded.
But La Boulaye cocked a pistol.
"Drive so much as a yard," he threatened. "and I'll drive you to the devil." Then, turning once more to Suzanne: "Never in my life, Citoyenne have I employed force to a woman," he said. "I trust that you will not put me to the pain of commencing now."
"Stand back, Monsieur," was her imperious answer. But heedless he advanced, and thrusting his head under the lintel of the carriage door he leaned forward, to seize her. Then, before he could so much as conjecture what she was about, her hand went up grasping a heavy horse-pistol by the barrel, and she brought the butt of it down with a deadly precision between his brows.
He reeled backwards, threw up his arms, and measured his length in the thick grey mud of the road.
Her eyes had followed him with a look of horror, and until she saw him lying still on his back did she seem to realise what she had done.
"My dear, brave girl," murmured her mother's voice but she never heard it. With a sob she relaxed her grasp of the pistol and let it fall from the carriage.
"Shall I drive on, Mademoiselle?" inquired Blaise from the box.
But without answering him she had stepped down into the mud, and was standing bare-headed in the rain beside the body of Caron.
Silently, she stooped and groped for his heart. It was beating vigorously enough, she thought. She stooped lower and taking him under the arms, she half bore, half dragged him to the side of the road, as if the thin, bare hedge were capable of affording him shelter. There she stood a moment looking down at him. Then with a sob she suddenly stooped, and careless of the eyes observing her, she kissed him full upon the mouth.
A second later she fled like a frightened thing back to the carriage, and, closing the door, she called in a strangled voice too drive on.
She paid little heed to the praise that was being bestowed upon her by her mother - who had seen nothing of the kiss. But she lay back in her corner of the coach, and now her lashes were wet at the thought of Caron lying out there in the road. Now her cheeks grew red with shame at the thought that she, the nobly-born Mademoiselle de Bellecour, should have allowed even pity to have so far overcome her as to have caused her to touch with her lips the lips of a low-bred revolutionist.
