I did not attribute it to the effect of the sudden intrusion of the
gypsy's song. It was by mere accident, I told myself, that her scruples
had returned at the moment of that intrusion. What was there in her love
that I need fear? She had told me to heed the song as a warning. I
considered this a mere device on her part to check the current of my
wooing. Her old scruples or her maidenly impulses might cause her to use
for that purpose any device that might occur. But, how long she might
postpone the final confession of surrender, it must come at last, for the
surrender itself was already made. Her heart was mine. What mattered it
now though the governor had come to Clochonne solely in quest of me? What
though he knew my hiding-place, discovered by the persistent De Berquin,
and its location by him communicated through Barbemouche? For, I said to
myself, if De Berquin had sent word to the governor, Barbemouche must
have been the messenger, for the three rascals now held at Maury could
not have been relied on, and they had the appearance of having wandered
in the forest several days.
I was just about to summon Blaise, that I might learn the result of his
interrogations, when I heard the voice of Maugert, who was lying in watch
by the forest path, call out:
"Who goes there?"
"We are friends," came the answer, quickly.
This voice also I knew, as well as Maugert's.
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