de la Tournoire."
"I shall leave orders with Marianne and Godeau to conduct him to Maury,
should he return to this place, as he very probably will. If you do not
wish otherwise, we shall ride on to Maury this morning."
"I do not wish otherwise," she replied. After a moment's pause, she
added, "Alas, monsieur, your friend, M. de Launay, when be promised me
your guidance across the border, engaged you to a more tedious task than
you might have wished to undertake. I fear that I must ask for a delay at
Maury. You see what trouble your friend has brought you into,--waiting
until a poor woman, who has been overcome by fatigue, recovers her
energies."
"Ah, mademoiselle," I said, with delight, "you will then hold me to the
promise made for me by my friend?"
"What else can a helpless woman do?" she asked, with a pretty smile,
although there was a tremor in the voice.
I was overjoyed to be assured that she had accepted the situation. I had
promised that, on her becoming acquainted with La Tournoire, she should
have no other protector. This had meant to her, at the time when it was
spoken, that I should go from her. To me it had meant, of course, that I
should continue with her. I had feared that, on learning the truth, she
would banish me. She had said that we must part. But now, despite the
fact that the same barrier existed between me and her, whether I was La
Tournoire or De Launay, despite her horror on learning that I was the
former, she had abandoned her intention of parting from me.
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